(By Emily Backus)
The city administration of Milan
and the Milan Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday kicked off the
one-year countdown to Milan Expo 2015, unveiling more than 130
events to take place in the city during the month of May 2015.
The packed program represents just the first month of the
six-month program Expo in Citta (Expo in the City) to coincide
with the food-themed Universal Exposition, which takes place May
1 to October 31, 2015.
Expo in Citta events fall under 10 key categories:
performance, art, media, creativity & style, Leonardo, kids,
science, well-being, 'world city' and 'feed the planet'.
Theatre, lectures and concerts - classical, jazz, pop, rock
and tango - all fall under "performance", including two free
concerts in Milan's Piazza Duomo planned May 16 to 18, and a
philharmonic concert May 26.
The art world will treat food-related themes in keeping
with the Universal Exposition's theme "Feeding the Planet:
Energy for Life" with photo and art exhibits, performance art,
installations and street art, including a 750-square-metre
'urban garden' poster installation by Michelangelo Pistoletto, a
leading proponent of the Italian Arte Povera movement from the
late 1960s and '70s.
'Leonardo' refers to Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance
polymath who lived and worked in Milan for 17 years, from 1482
to 1499.
An installation called Leonardo Icon, created by star
architect Daniel Libeskind will be put up in Piazza Pio XI
starting May 26.
The 'kids' program will provide food-themed 'edutainment',
including the theatre piece "Per mangiarti meglio" (The better
to eat you) - a play on nutrition and the wolf's words in Little
Red Riding Hood - and a didactic farm in the ex-Parco Trotter.
Other schedule highlights include a lecture by Nobel
laureate Amartya Sen on the ethics of globalization; the Sapori
e Saperi (flavors and knowledge) series of conferences and
meetings for sharing food-related passions; and an exhibition at
the Biennale di Architettura of Venice on urban transformation
for Milan and possible post-Expo scenarios.
Events in the city scheduled throughout the 184 days of the
Universal Exposition are expected to add an estimated two
billion euros worth of business activities and employ roughly
20,000 people, according to a study commissioned by the Milan
Chamber of Commerce and Milan Expo 2015 carried out by a
research team at SDA Bocconi University headed by finance
professor Alberto dell'Acqua.
Meanwhile, Italian celebrity singer-songwriter Andrea
Bocelli will sing for the debut of Milan Expo's very first
musical soundtrack in a send-off event to launch the one-year
countdown Wednesday evening.
The music composed by legendary cinema composer Ennio
Morricone will be performed by the 71 musicians and 50
choralists of the RAI orchestra - the orchestra of the Italian
public broadcasting company - in Piazza Gae Aulenti of the Porta
Nuova development in semi-central Milan.
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