The world-famous jazz trumpet and saxhorn player Paolo Fresu celebrated his 50 birthday with 50 concerts throughout Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the heart of Mediterranean Sea, invading it with the light sound and soft words of jazz music in the warm summer atmosphere.

From June 12 to July 31 he played every evening for a self-planned and directed tour, changing places, performances and partners day by day. A full immersion of jazz music in the most uncontaminated and wild areas of the island. An actual collection of fascinating places full of mystery, culture, magic and history.

Arts and culture join nature in the total respect of environment. Indeed, all the energy needed for the stage was provided by an ecological electrical generator, supplied through solar panels exposed to the day light before any concert. The intention was to create a relationship between music and landscape, promoting renewable energy and trying to sensitize public awareness of environmental issues.

The sound of Fresu’s trumpet re-echoed around green mountains, mines, archeological areas, accompanied by several musicians, actors, writers, orchestras from all around the world. Just to mention some of these musicians, Ralph Towner from Washington U.S., Richard Galliano from France, Omar Sosa from Cuba, Enrico Rava from Italy, Dave Douglas from New York U.S., Eivind Aarset from Norway, Glenn Ferris from Los Angeles U.S., Dhafer Youssef from Tunisia, Ludovico Einaudi from Italy, Nguyén Lé from France, and Uri Caine from Philadelphia U.S.

!50 music tour offered to all jazz lovers a special gift made by music, nature and culture. Words and music merged in an explosion of warm sounds and surreal atmospheres. And all for free, in fact there was no ticket to pay , only passion and taste for good jazz music were needed. The concerts performances were also available on live streaming.

The “sleepless trumpeter”, as Fresu is being called for his incessant musical activity – more than 300 recorded albums and 2500 concerts up to present -, never stops surprising his fans and his island with his skill as an artist and his simplicity as a man.

Paolo Fresu was born in Berchidda, a small village in north Sardinia. He started playing trumpet at the age of 11 and after different musical experiences in 1980 he began his jazz career. Nowadays he is one of the most appreciated and popular European jazzman. Since the ‘80s he has won several awards as best jazz musician in different countries, such as the prestigious Django d’Or in France. In 2005 he was one of the nominees for the Latin Grammy Awards of Santa Monica, California.

Over the last 30 years he has performed all over the world with a wide set of international artists such as John Zorn, Dave Holland, Gil Evans, John Abercrombie, Trilok Gurtu, John Taylor, Palle Danielsson, Jon Christensen, Gerry Mulligan, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Richard Beirach, Jim Hall, Helen Merril, Ralph Towner, Richard Galliano, Michel Portal, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Jeanne Lee, Gunther Schüller, Paul McCandless, Toots Thielemans, Andy Sheppard, and many more.

There is not much more to say about this great jazzman, his music can speak better than thousands of words.

!50 Paolo Fresu & Uri Caine video

The article Paolo Fresu’s !50: a Tour of Jazz and Renewable Energy appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

“Being a Toonarian has made me learn and allows me to achieve my own goals – making me experience new things and allowing me to discover inner strengths that I have. You feel small, and then you start feeling bigger, you feel valuable”

This Toonarian was born and raised in Sardinia, Italy. Since she started this adventurous journey she has learned a lot. Francesca has always lived in Sardinia, but this has not limited her dreams of going abroad. On two occasions she went to Hungary. She did her Erasmus for one semester in Budapest. She likes to experience new cultures, and live through new things. She says: ” I never feel I have just one home”. She explains her desire to leave a small universe for a bigger one; “I love my small universe of course, but I know that I have too many limitations here. I’m always looking outside, to go to a bigger universe.”

As any other young person, she had a dream. “I was fascinated by the idea of being a journalist, I had to see how it would go, since it is not easy to find a job in this area.” She started searching for an internship abroad, checking several websites, created a profile where the companies could see her curriculum. She recalls signing up for Europlacement.com and after two months, and unexpected email surprised her, welcoming her into an internship.

She noticed that the internship was located in United States, but soon realized that this was not an ordinary internship. It was going to be a virtual experience. Francesca thought at this moment, “Everything just sounded so new I have never heard of this kind of internship online”

“When I explained to my friends and family about the new internship I had found everyone was surprise. They asked me questions but I wasn’t sure how to answer since the experience was pretty new to me too, and I didn’t know all the incredible things you are able to do. The first thing that came to my mind was just to tell that it was cool since you talked to your colleagues, learn and work at home. This actually seemed less interesting but it turned out to be the great thing about our internship. That it’s not possible to put it into words because it offers something else that you only experience by being part of it.

Once she started, she recalls despite being full of excitement, she was also nervous since she didn’t know exactly how it was going to develop. Especially because this is not exactly how one would picture the first day of work. Actually, you will meet and talk to people, but not physically. Once the meeting started she realized something amazing, “the first training, it wasn’t like a regular lesson where you write down things and are assigned work, but it was more open. The interns could actually exchange their ideas, learn new things, and learn to create their projects with their own suggestions.”

“At the beginning, Toonari Post was about to be launched. We were assigned to write a lot of articles. I was like ‘O.M.G! I have to do a lot of things in such a small period of time’. I thought I have to do my best because it was at the start. I was a bit nervous but now I feel more comfortable and I trust myself more because I found myself achieving things that brought me inner satisfactions and made me proud.”

The internship surprised her in a way that helped discover inner talents and taste of different fields. She explained that having her article published on the website the first time was a very enriching feeling. “It was so strange – I believed I could do it, but I had never actually tried. When I started I said ‘okay I will try, but it is hard to come up with the most important thing that I should write’. But mainly just trying to be clear, putting altogether the ideas and hoping that people can actually understand what I really mean”.

She asked for her friends’ opinion, in order to make sure that her article was understandable. “After the first, second and third article you see the audience that likes or criticizes what you wrote, and this is the main thing that brings me motivation to keep going, and writing.

Regarding the English language, the explains what it is like to come from Italy. “At the University I don’t write in English that often, mostly just for the exams. But as part of this internship, language is another field that it includes for me, and it helps me learn and practice the English language. I can learn about languages, journalism and communication all at the same time!”

“It is not so easy to find a job that you really like. And that makes you happy. The best part of it is the relationships we are building between us. Because of the great work atmosphere, relations between your colleagues and your boss go hand in hand.”

The virtual element is a different way of working.” We’ve never seen each other; we don’t have the visual impact that often can generate different perceptions. When you meet a person, of course you judge their physical appearance and even if you don’t want to, you do it. We know each other through conversation, expressing our ideas, and collaborating. Therefore, we can truly express ourselves from our insides, leaving apart physical judgments.”

“I think we should explain to new interns, that you really create something through your work and effort. And when you see the results, you think ‘I did it! It is my job!’. You really feel it is something of yours! When you start, you don’t have any idea if you would like it or not, but if you stay, you find in yourself the right things, discover the field you like to work on. You make connections, and you even learn how to create these connections. Maybe you think that a small topic about a small event can be indifferent, but then you understand that if you take this small thing and you connect it with a bigger thing it becomes a global thing.”

Also, the international aspect is something that has grabbed her attention. “Since we are all international, this is a way of exploring, maybe even more depths of a person coming from the other side of the world, than from a person that lives next to you. It is a good opportunity to learn, by exchanging opinions, ideas, and points of view. You learn what people think and how they share things in common. You compare, and understand certain cultural differences and mentality that probably you could have never get to experience without living your country.

The article Francesca Biggio, Fascinated by The Idea of Being a Journalist appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

“An ancient Mediterranean necropolis described as one of the world’s greatest historical sites is being submerged beneath cement, high rise housing and rubbish dumps, according to Italian conservationists. Tuvixeddu – which means “hills with small cavities” in the Sardinian dialect – contains thousands of Phoenician and Punic burial chambers from the 6th century BC. It has long been robbed of funerary objects but some of its tombs have retained their original paintings, including “Ureo’s Tomb”, named after a sacred serpent, and “The Warrior’s Tomb”, in which a decoration depicts a warrior throwing a spear.”

This was the beginning of an article of the English newspaper The Times in 2008. The first time that a foreign newspaper turned its eyes to the biggest and unknown Phoenician necropolis of Mediterranean Sea, in the island of Sardinia in Italy. Before that article no one out of Italy had never heard about this archaeological area in the heart of Cagliari, the regional capital town of Sardinia.

Very few people know about this place even in Italy, very few people imagine that in a small angle of a not very popular town there is a place on a hill called Tuvixeddu and that this place is an ancient and beautiful necropolis more than 2500 years old.

Unfortunately the only reason why some newspaper told the story of this place is the “modern threat” of a future that seems not to have any respect for history. It’s unbelievable but the reality is that Tuvixeddu is becoming famous just for its struggle against the threat of 260 thousand cubic meters of cement.

Some years ago a project of more than 150 millions of euros has been proposed by a famous and powerful builder, Gualtiero Cualbu that seems to be a good supporter of the current regional president in office – who is of the same party of Berlusconi and was supported by the Prime Minister for his electoral campaign in 2009 with a strong advertisement -, and also a friend of various politicians of the right wing, that currently have the power and the administration of the major institutions in the island.

This “monstrous” project, supported without delay by the right parties, consists of the building of a new and functional residential area right next to the archaeological area of Tuvixeddu.

The former president of Sardinia,Renato Soru – of the left wing party-, with the support of the cultural and ecologist association Italia Nostra and the political group Sardegna Democratica, reported and stopped the building while he was in office – until 2009 – for defending the area and the treasures which are held inside the tombs and the cavities. But in 2009, after the loss of Soru, the new local government canceled the blockage and the project could be relaunched.

Some days ago the good news, the sentence of the Council of State blocked the building, saving in this way the necropolis from the cement. The struggle of the former regional president has been won, the monster that threatened this invaluable treasure – the cement – has been defeated. In a world where the respect for the ancient times and the antiquities counts less than the business and the personal and political interests this is an important conquest.

Now our wish is that Tuvixeddu could become famous for its real value and not just for its disgraces.

The article The Biggest Mediterranean Phoenician Necropolis Is Safe appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

In Sardinia,an Italian island in the Mediterranean sea,there is a drilling experimental firing range called “Salto di Quirra”, located in Perdasdefogu, a small village. Since the 1st of July 1956, along a natural area of 120 square kilometers in the south-east coast of the island, various types of rockets and missiles are tested under the authority of the Italian Air Force.

This is the only firing range of Italy used for space activities, arms and means testing and military drilling for wars around the world.

It’s a small place in a small island but it hides a big and important truth. Many lambs and other animals which were born in this land have six legs or no eyes, a high rate of fetal malformations and of tumors and leukemia affect the population that lives in the villages around the firing range.

The medical research of the last ten years shows that the number of people affected by tumor disease is constantly increasing in this area, and researchers are analyzing the possible causes and the links between these cases and the arms used in the firing range of Quirra. A syndrome that seems to have much in common with the pathologies contracted by the soldiers who came back from missions in Afghanistan, Iraq or the Balkans regions. The reason of these similarities seems to be related to the usage of depleted uranium munitions, or to the presence of heavy metals nanoparticles.

Many charges for suspect deaths and for tumors cases have been filed by the inhabitants of the villages around the Salto di Quirra and by the soldiers who had worked there but, especially by the farmers that graze their flocks in the surroundings.

This area is one of the less populated of the island therefore the high incidence of diseases and malformations in the population has attracted the attention of various researchers that are trying to investigate about this “strange” situation.

Until now indifference have been the way followed by the institutions and the politicians. In many years of unofficial research nothing certain has been declared and nowadays there are very conflicting opinions about this case. Fortunately now the solicitor’s office of the area has blocked the activities of the firing range to start an official investigation. Also the Italian Government has approved the necessity of the investigation to make clear the situation.

A special team of researchers led by Antonietta Morena Gatti, a nanoparticles expert and a consultant of the national parliamentary commission of depleted uranium inquiry, have been charged with monitoring and analyzing all the finds and the reports about the subjects living or working in that area which have been affected by tumor disease in the last years, with the aim to verify the relations between the substances present in the firing range and those found in the human tissues.

During the last weeks some arms have been seized to make precise checks. The latest news say that some of them present traces of enriched uranium, the radioactivity rate recorded is five times higher than the normal. But as always there is no certainty.

The investigations should carry on until June 2011. The hope is that finally there will be real and clear explanations. Besides for the inhabitants’ health, the range is also damaging to the environment. The sea floor in front of the Salto di Quirra is an actual bombs and rockets cemetery devastated by the explosions. The arms underlie the sea over the years.

Real proof but not even one certainty yet in this small and unknown angle of Europe in the heart of the Mediterranean sea. Meanwhile different interests interlace and clash, the truth has yet to come to light.

The article The Firing Range’s Hidden Truth in the Heart of Sardinia, Italy appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.