The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio

I watched a movie titled "The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio". This movie was filmed in Rome and deals with the formation of an international orchestra during a time of protesting in Italy. People had been protesting about immigrants coming into their country illegally. This is shown some in the film so the audience has an idea of what is going on in this area and why it might be hard to start an orchestra up.

As stated in the film, this area in Rome had changed a lot throughout time. Music had kind of died out a little and now there were many more immigrants in the city, plus products were being shipped there from China (which was making some people act crazy!). The older people especially did not like these types of changes. As music and the arts were dying out, the government couldn't think of a need to keep the Apollo theater around, since attendance wasn't very high anymore. They were planning on turning it into a bingo hall. This is where the idea to invite musicians from all over to come together and form an international orchestra occurred.

It was a much bigger challenge to find musicians than I thought it would be. They searched for months and months to find musicians and singers as well. There were struggles with visas too, since one man came from India and traveled for the first time to Italy. There were conflicts among the musicians at their first practice because everyone had their own way of doing things. Everyone is unique; every instrument is unique. Bringing this many different sounding instruments and people together to try and create good music seemed like it was going to be real difficult to me.

By the end of the movie though, the musicians had come together (after providing their own funding for this project and hoping they would succeed and start to accumulate some money) and performed at a concert in the fall. The crowd looked like they enjoyed the music a lot and everyone seemed pleasantly surprised. I really liked the sound they had; it was a very different style of music than I've heard before. There were traditional Indian vocals and instruments, but then there was also a trumpet player and a bass player, which added some variety to the sound.

This group is still together and playing more shows now, after they were able to keep the Apollo theater open. I love hearing stories like this and it was very interesting to watch this story unfold. The film wasn't made of the best quality and it was dull at times, but the story itself was good. It showed how to overcome a challenge and stick with an idea once you set your mind to it. This whole process took over a year, and then a few years after that till the group got their name established.

Here is one review to give a little more information about the film:

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/orchestrapiazzavittorio.php