Artists working together

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and to learn about them and their art. This is the last part of that interview.

Sunil: Sara, tell me about your artistic journey, how did you decide to be a sculptor?

Sara: At high school level I went to the art school in Monza. There I had a good teacher who did clay modelling and sculpture, so I got into it. He literally forced me to go to the Brera art academy in Milan. For the first 2 years I was with Prof. Giancarlo Marchese, but I was not feeling creatively happy with him. For the first year he made me do only sketching, without ever touching the clay and I did not like it. At that time I already had a studio and I was doing sculptures. Then in 1997, in the third year I went to some lessons with Nicola, and from the first lesson, I wanted to work with him. Luckily, it worked out and I could shift my classes. He told me to work with bronze, and once I did that, I fell in love with it. Two of my important works in that period were in Bronze, and I did my thesis on Nicola.

At that time I was also working as a waitress because I needed money to buy materials for my art. Nicola told me to give up that work and he gave me some work like making holes in the leaves, making small sculptures of fishes, etc. and he paid me. Some time after finishing the academy I started living with him.

Nicola: The personal thing between us, it happened when she was out of the academy and was no longer my student. I think that it is important to clarify it since I don't think that teacher can have relationships with their students, it would not be correct professional behaviour.

Sara: So now each of us has our own individual work but we collaborate when we make sculptures for public spaces. "The Humanity" project started in 2003. It started as a project for a school but we could not manage it, but then we continued with it for many years up to 2008-09. Since then, because of the crisis it has got a little slowed down.

Since 2001 after our first journey in India, I am also working on the theme of women.

Sunil: How do you influence each other? Do you influence each other?

Nicola: Surely we influence each other. To be in love is necessary for creating art, it becomes the oxygen that you breathe. There are things we share, like our love for travelling, our love for food, our way of living. It all influences the way we work and the kind of things we make. However, we don't share similar taste in music, I love classical music while she loves Bruce Springsteen and Vasco Rossi.

Sara: Perhaps that is a generational thing.

Nicola: It is not generational, I was like this when I was twenty. My son, he is forty, he also loves classical music.

Sara: But the world has changed, your twenty years were very different from my twenty years. Coming to the questioning of reciprocal influence, in the initial phase of our work, we do sit together and ask each other's opinion.

Nicola: We are very honest in giving opinion to each other.

Sara: Suppose he makes a horse, I can tell him that in my opinion, the neck is too long or he says that the arm of the my sculpture is too thin in this part.. so we criticise each other's work. We recognise that there are some things that he is good at and I am not so good, there are other things that I can make better. So in our joint works, we keep account of these things.

Nicola: In some human figures in bronze, she is really good, even if I try I can't match her.

Sunil: Apart from India, was there any other journey that has influenced your work?

Sara: Even our journey to Cambodia was significant, in terms of female figures. The influence of Africa has been much less. But some journeys like from this last journey in India, there are things that will remain in my heart for ever. Kumar, our guide, took us to the village of his wife. There the headman, an elderly person with white beard, he washed our feet as a sign of welcome. I was so embarrassed and at the same time, it touched me very deeply. It was an emotional experience very different from the experiences of other journeys. For example, once we were in Mexico and went to a catholic church, where the floor was covered with pine needles, and every where they had statues of saints. Another strange thing was that people were drinking coke and making loud hiccups, so it was a church prayer with some strange rituals. I can remember that experience with pleasure but it did not touch me emotionally like this journey to India touched me. They have influenced our work most.

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Nicola has made two sculptures of Sara. In one, she is lying down nude, her arms up holding a big fish. In another sculpture, Sara is surrounded by stalks of tall weed or thin bamboo like plants, holding her a prisoner, and she is followed by a figure in a veil.

Sara has also made a sculpture of Nicola. In this, a weaver (Sara) is making a quilt and in the quilt, there is Nicola's face made with metal wires.

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Read more about Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Art for Public Places - Nicola Zamboni

In May 2013, I met the Italian sculptor duo, Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. Nicola believes in art for public spaces rather than art for rich individuals or for museums. Here are some excerpts of our conversation.

Sunil: Nicola lets start with you. Please tell me about how did you decide to become a sculptor and which experiences shaped you as an artist?

Nicola: From the childhood I was interested in sculpture and painting. My father, who was a factory worker, wanted me to become an accountant, so I did go to the accountancy school, but I was not good at studies. At the time of my final exam, the president of the commission was a person who knew me, said that we shall pass you but you have to promise us two things - one that you will make a bust of Marconi (our school was called named after him) for the school and second, you will never work as an accountant!

Actually I did work briefly as an accountant, but after a few months, the owner told me that it would be better for me to do something else. So I went to the art academy but I did not finish it. During the third year of art college, I went to UK at Henry Moore's house for one month and when I came back to Bologna, I did not want to study any more. At the school we had a good teacher, prof. Ghirmandi, he asked me to become his assistant. Since then I have spent all my life as a sculptor.

Today I find persons who have no preparation or experience, but after 2 days of art work they want to be recognised as artists or sculptors!

Sunil: So you think that formal art training is important for an artist?

Nicola: I think that you need to have talent as an artist but you also need to work hard and practice your skills. With a lot of hard work and discipline, even with little talent you can reach good results. Others can reach good results because they have a lot of talent though they do not have enough discipline. But generally speaking, you need a little talent and a lot of discipline and hard work to be a good artist.

Sunil: I have seen your works in terracotta, stone and metal - which is your favourite material?

Nicola: I like all the different materials, each has its own characteristics that are unique and that you have learn to understand and discover. My desire was to create works that can be displayed in public spaces, especially in spaces of the marginalised people and peripheries, so I always try to adapt my working materials to the economic possibilities of those who can commission my work. I also need to think of the place where the art will be displayed, in selecting the materials. For example, for the sculptures in Parco Pasolini in Pilastro area of Bologna, they did not have lot of money and the work was huge. I was supposed to create sculptures of a long line of persons going to the theatre spread over 500 meters, so I used mostly cement and a little stone. I made persons without faces, without features, who as they reach the theatre acquire features and become full persons. Those sculptures also included a theatre with seats, but 5-6 years ago the municipality decided to cover that part of my work and now it is gone.

Sometimes, vandals can deface your work in public spaces, but usually it is the institutions that suddenly decide to destroy art in public places.

Sunil: Why did you choose to make art for public spaces?

Nicola: I don't like the idea of rich persons keeping my art hidden away where no one looks at it, except may be for their Dobermans, who piss on it regularly in their gardens, and only once in a while some person will look at it. In the big museums, you find all kinds of art works put together, you have to look at them all at one time, one after another. On the other hand, the art, especially sculptures, need to interact with the people and the city spaces, it is part of the city life. Society needs to look at the art and say what do they think of it. Society needs to tell the artist what it appreciates in art, there should be a dialogue between the artist and the city. So every space, every context, needs it own style of art and this is a challenge for the artist - you need to think of the spaces and find artistic idea for that space, rather than having your own style of art that you put up every where.

Sunil: If you look backwards on your works, do you see some kind of evolution?

Nicola: When I had come back to Bologna after staying with Henry Moore, I was in love with him and for some time, all my works resembled his. I feel that we are always influenced by works of others, there is nothing that comes out of no where, you always find inspirations in the life around you and in the works of others. Thus, started a period of experimentation for me. For one year, I asked a construction company to work with them. During that one year, I was using their materials - stones, cement, wood, anything that caught my fancy, and I worked on it. So I got my materials and in exchange they got all my art works and these were put up in different parts of Bologna and San Lazzaro (suburb of Bologna). During that year I felt that contemporary art was not the right style for Bologna - after a few years, the contemporary sculptures do not fit in the city spaces any more. So I turned towards more classical figures for my sculptures.

Many of those sculptures in public spaces, are now in a bad condition, but that is the risk of making public works, to be a street artist is not easy for your art. In a museum, your art is safe and people take care of it. Destruction of my art work is part of their life cycles. I accept it. However when institutions, deliberately destroy my art, that hurts me. In Via Larga in Bologna, near the mall, I had built about 120 sculptures. There were sculptures of some well known people among them. However, some 7-8 years ago, they destroyed all of them and that hurt me. Only some pictures remain of that monumental work.

Sunil: Among all your works, do you feel especially close to some specific work?

Nicola: The group of bronze sculptures that I am making now with Sara, "The Humanity" that is very close to my heart. It is an allegory for modern times. It has figures of those who are killing others, destroying things, destroying their animals. It also has those who are trying to run away, to escape with their miserly belongings and their dreams.

Sunil: When I had seen the exhibition of "The Humanity", I had thought that it represented a medieval war.

Nicola: It is an allegory about modern times but I chose medieval style for its representation since warriors with their medieval dresses and armors express strongly the differences between those who kill and the other simple persons. If I had made them with modern clothes, it was more difficult to express this concept. These persons hide their faces behind armors, masks and shields, so that they are no longer persons, but they turn into things. That mask and armor can mean a bank account, some secret group, some power - so those sculptures are not about a medieval war, rather medieval war is a symbolism for what is happening in the world today.

Like there are the animals in those sculptures, they have been pulled into this war, and they are also the unfortunate victims of this war. To show all this, I decided to express myself through an allegory. It is not only men who are destroyers, there also some women also, dressed as warriors in this work.

Sunil: And the women covered with veils where you can see only their eyes?

Sara: They are part of the victims, those who are trying to escape this war, the refugees.

Nicola: Once we went for holidays at a seaside resort in the middle east. There were American and German women who were walking around in bikini and then there were local women, covered from head to feet.

Sara: These two very contrasting ways of dressing brought together in one place, it was a strange and powerful sight. A very strange kind of fashion show.

Nicola: I liked it very much, this contrasting visual, though I must say that I believe in the freedom of choice, that people must be able to choose what they wish to wear. At the same time, I think that it is worse when people forget their customs and become homogenized. For example on the TV to see the leader of China dressed exactly like the leader of USA or France, that seems so strange to me!

Sara: Even in Africa, where traditions are lost and a lot of persons dress like westerners, though fortunately there are some people who still wear their traditional dresses.

Nicola: There are some paintings from Venice from the 15th century, where you can see persons from different parts of the world - the Arabs, the Jews, the Indians, each with their own way of dressing. It is so beautiful. I think that differences of costumes is a beautiful richness of our humanity, providing that people have a choice in deciding what they wish to wear and are not forced to do it in a certain way.

Sunil: This opera "The Humanity" how do you see it, already complete or you still making new sculptures for it?

Nicola: As long as I will have strength in my body, I will keep on making new sculptures to add to the Humanity. However, now I want to focus only on making the sculptures of persons who are the victims of this war, who are trying to run away to save their lives and livelihoods. These sculptures of "The Humanity" have already been to four exhibitions - first in Modena, then in Arezzo, then in Accursio palace in Bologna, then in Piazza dell'Unità in Bologna.

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Read the first 2 Parts of this Post

Part 1: An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Part 2: Meet the artist & sculptor Sara Bolzani

Sara Bolzani: Inspired by India

Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani are two Italian sculptors. I like their works very much. In May 2013, I had the opportunity to visit them and talk to them about their art. This post is about their visits to India and how India has inspired some of Sara's sculptures.

Nicola and Sara live in Sala Bolognese, a small rural town to the north of Bologna. In the middle of the farm houses, their house also seems like a usual farm house.

When we reached their home, Nicola was waiting for us in his studio on the ground floor. He took us up to the first floor where they live and where Sara was also waiting for us. They had just been in India at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad and then had been to visit Varanasi. The visit had had a strong impact on them and ideas of India had influenced Sara's recent art works. So our conversations started with India.

Here are some excerpts from this conversation:

Sara: My series on sculptures of women started from a journey to India, more than 10 years ago, when we had gone to Rajasthan. I like very much the way women wear sari in India.

Nicola: In India I thought that Sara looked so Indian and we met one person who was so much like her brother.

Sara: In India my skin had become darker and many people thought that I was an Indian so they spoke to me in Hindi. I really wanted us to stay on in India for a longer period and work with some Indian artists, but we had no contacts with any artists there. I am also interested in learning more about Hindu mythology because I feel that can be an inspiration for my work. I was told about the different gods and how each god and goddess is linked to an animal, I want to explore this relationship. I need to find some easy to understand book. I tried with Bhagvad Geeta but it is just too difficult and it does not talk about the different gods. I have done some work on Greek mythological figures like Antigone. I like expressing those stories through my sculptures.

Sunil: In Bologna, there is a significant Bengali community and they organise Durga Puja every year at Centro Zonarelli, so that can be an opportunity for you to observe some of the Hindu mythologies directly rather than reading about them in books. That sculpture (pointing to a sculpture in the room) with the tiger and the woman seems inspired by the figure of Durga in Hindu mythology.

Sara: Actually that sculpture is linked to a daytime dream that I had many years ago. It was a vivid dream, very strong and very emotional. I was going from house to Milan and I was in a hurry, suddenly I felt as I had turned into a tiger, and I was running on four legs. It was such a powerful feeling. I have tried to express that feeling in this sculpture of the tiger and the woman.

I made it three years ago and a person who collects our works wanted it but for a long time I did not want to see it, I felt that it was very personal. In the end, I made a copy of those sculptures and sold it. Then another collector bought only the woman, so I copied the woman's sculpture. Now another collector wants both of them, so I have to make a copy of both the figures because I always want this sculpture with me to remind me of that vivid dream.

However, my last work has been inspired from India. I had seen a woman with a plate in her hand and I thought that it was a wonderful inspiration for a sculpture. So after coming back from the Kumbh mela trip, I have made this woman with a plate in her hand. I finished it last week and now it is being exhibited in a church.

Here are some images of Sara's works including the woman with the tiger and two of her India inspired works.

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Read More About Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

An Introduction to Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzoni

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Working together Nicola and Sara

Meet the artists - Introduction to Nicola and Sara

For a long time, I did not understand the links between the artists and their art. I mean, I knew the artists responsible for their works, but I didn't understand the importance of learning about their lives for a better appreciation of their art!

Once I understood that link, I realized that artists have their own contexts, relationships and personalities that influence the decisions they make when they work on their art. So now when I like a piece of art, I want to learn more about the artist who made it and often I find that it gives me new insights into their art. This changes my appreciation of that art, it makes it deeper and more satisfying.

This post is about two of my my favourite Italian sculptors - Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani. In May 2013, I went to meet them at their home in Sala Bolognese, not very far from Bologna (Italy). I am planning three posts regarding this meeting - this first post is about how I discovered their art. The remaining two posts will be about the discussions with them, where they talk about their art and give a glimpse into their lives.

The Humanity Exhibition

I first discovered the works of Nicola Zamboni and Sara Bolzani at their joint exhibition called "The Humanity" in 2011. This exhibition was held in the inner courtyard of the Accursio Palace in the city centre of Bologna. This is a square-shaped space surrounded by medieval buildings that is commonly used for art exhibitions.

The exhibition was composed of different human-size figures in bronze, with medieval soldiers on horses, scenes of violence, women running away with their children in their arms and their belongings on their heads, horses falling down and persons dying, soldiers raping and abducting women. I was mesmerized by this exhibition and went back to look at it a couple of times.

On one hand, I felt that some of the middle-eastern figures of this exhibition, such as the women covered in black chadors, were stereotypes. On the other hand, the unmistakable vitality of the figures had a strong emotional impact on me.

One of my favourite figures in this exhibition was that of a thoughtful angel waiting near a dying horse and a soldier.

The 12 women of Villa Spada

A few months after the Humanity exhibition, I went to visit the textile museum of Bologna hosted in a 16th century building called Villa Spada. This villa had an Italian garden on a hill - a garden where plants are made to form geometric shapes, which had some medieval sculptures that were damaged. In their place, they had put 12 terracotta statues of women, each woman representing one month of a year.

I fell in love with those statues and felt that they were among the most beautiful pieces of sculpture that I had ever seen. Some time later, I wrote a blog post about that building and about its terracotta statues, in which I expressed my love for those statues and wondered who was the artist behind them?

A few months later, some one from Villa Spada, perhaps its owner, wrote back on my blog, specifying that the statues were the work of Nicola Zamboni. I immediately remembered Nicola's name from the Humanity exhibition. I was impressed by the fact that Nicola seemed equally good with bronze as with terracotta.

The Strange People of Pilastro Park

In the beginning of 2013, I visited a park located in the Pilastro area of Bologna. The park had some strange sculptures - of people walking from one corner of the park towards its centre, where they had an open air theatre. The people were without faces near the corner of the park and as they came near the theatre, their faces became more defined.

Looking for Nicola Zamboni

I was a little intrigued by those sculptures in the park. They were completely unlike any other sculptures that I had seen.

One day I did an internet search to learn more about those sculptures and found that they were also the work of Nicola Zamboni. So finally I decided that it was time for me to search for Nicola and try to meet them.

A search on internet helped me to find Nicola's webpage and contact, so I called him. When I told him that I was from India and I wanted to meet him, suddenly I felt his voice change - he was immediately warm and enthusiastic about the idea of my visit to meet him.

"It must be destiny that you searched for us, because we have been thinking and talking so much about India these last few months", he gushed.

Later when I went to visit him, I discovered the reason for his enthusiasm! About this, you can read more in the next post about Nicola and Sara.

In the mean time you can admire this sculpture of Nicola Zamboni from Villa Spada, that I love so much. I think that the woman of this sculpture is disabled, a woman without her right arm, but I am not sure about it. Her face expresses so much tenderness! For tourists coming to Bologna, I always tell them that they should not miss a visit to Villa Spada - these sculptures should be a must for all art lovers visiting Bologna!

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Read More About Nicola Zamboni & Sara Bolzani

Meet the artist: Sara Bolzoni

Meet the artist: Nicola Zamboni

Working together Sara Bolzoni & Nicola Zamboni 

Baby in the womb - Amazing anatomy models

The science museum of Bologna (Italy) has an amazing collection of anatomy models created around mid-1700s, and used for teaching to the medical students and obstetricians. I especially love the part of this museum that presents the models of babies in their mothers' wombs. If you ever visit Bologna and you are interested in human anatomy, do not forget to visit this museum.

This photo-essay presents some of the anatomical models from The Palazzo Poggi Science Museum of Bologna university.

Origins of anatomy models in Bologna

In 1758 Pope Benedict XIV asked the university of Bologna to establish a school for teaching obstetrics in Palazzo Poggi, that hosted the Bologna university at that time. Dr Giovanni Antonio Galli (1708-1782) was the first professor of obstetrics at this school. Most of the anatomy models displayed in Palazzo Poggi were created during the second half of 1700s by anatomy artists like Anna Morandi Manzolini, Giovanni Manzolini, Ercole Lelli and Clemente Susini. The models are made mainly in two kinds of materials - cold painted terracotta and wax.

Some of the first obstetrics models showing babies in the mother's womb were made by Giovanni Manzolini for Prof. Galli. When Giovanni Manzolini died in 1755, Prof. Galli asked his wife Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714-1774), who was also an artist and used to help her husband, to make the models. Majority of obstetrics models displayed in the Palazzo Poggi science museum are by Anna, who did human dissections and was appointed as the professor of anatomy.

Ercole Lelli (1702-1766) was a well known painter and anatomy modeller. His speciality was wax models of human bodies showing the bones and the muscles. Finally Clemente Susini (1754-1814) was another important artist who specialised in preparing wax models showing the different organs.

Obstetrics models of Palazzo Poggi

Let us start this virtual tour with a terracotta representation of Prof. Galli teaching to obstetricians. It shows both a pregnant woman as well as an anatomical model used for teaching. However, in reality only models were used for teaching and actual people were not brought in the theory classes.

When I had studied medicine in Delhi (India), we did not have any such models. Though I had studied human anatomy and obstetrics, most of our learnings were through looking at few diagrams and imagining the human body.

Today, the 3D computer-based models are common and are a wonderful learning tool. Some time ago, during a free online Coursera course on the anatomy of the upper limb, I had tried learning through virtual 3D models and they were wonderful!

Even comparing with the quality of virtual 3D models, I think that the terracotta models shown below are absolutely amazing.

During the pregnancy, the baby keeps on moving in different positions in the womb. Only when it is close to the delivery time, baby takes the position for the delivery. In most cases, the baby's head goes inside the birth canal and the opening of the uterus begins to dilate. Some of the possible positions for a head-first delivery are shown in the image below (though in these models, the head is still not engaged inside the birth canal):

Some times, instead of the head, baby's butt or the feet come out first - it can mean a more difficult delivery, especially if it is a first baby. Some of the positions for butt or feet first delivery are shown in the following models:

Inside the uterus, the baby is closed inside a membrane filled with liquid - the amniotic sack and the amniotic liquid, while the umbilical cord connects the baby to the placenta on the uterine wall as shown in the next models.

How do twin babies grow inside the uterus is another fascinating area of study, and are shown in the next images.

Most child-births are fairly straight-forward affairs, and women are known to have delivered even alone. However some times there can be complications. Thus regular check-ups during the pregnancy and the presence of a trained obstetrician or a trained traditional birth attendant is important during the child-birth.

Some countries in Africa and South Asia, including India, continue to have high mortality rates for the mothers and the new born babies. Urban areas in India have highly privatised health services with extremely high rates of Cesarean sections. On the other hand, services in rural areas and for the urban poor are lacking or are of poor quality. Reducing mortality of mothers and new born babies is one of the Millennium Development Goals - unfortunately, the progress for reaching this goal has not been sufficient.

The next image shows models depicting some complications during deliveries - intervention for removing placenta (normally placenta separates automatically after the child birth and comes out, but sometimes, it may need to be removed) and the rupture of the uterus.

The position of the placenta in the uterus can sometimes be a problem, if it is placed close to the opening of the uterus and thus, can rupture during the early phases of the child-birth. Therefore, an ultra-sound test is important during the pregnancy to rule out any malformations and to confirm the position of the placenta.

Unfortunately in countries like India and China, ultra-sound test may also be used for sex-determination and abortion of female foetuses.

The next image shows the wax models explaining the different positions of placenta inside the uterus.

Ercole Lelli's wax models

The anatomy museum also has the wax models of Ercole Lelli showing the human bodies, especially the bones and muscles. There are both male and female models, that show the different layers of skin, tissues, muscles and bones in the human body. These make learning of human anatomy such as the functions of individual muscles in moving different joints, so much simpler.

The Venerina of Clemente Susini

Clemente Susini had specialised in the models showing different organs of the body, important for understanding of human anatomy and physiology. One of his most famous creations is the model of a pregnant woman, where you can remove different layers of skin and muscles to look inside different organs, and to take out individual organs to study them.

Conclusions

Every time I visit the anatomy museum of Palazzo Poggi, I wish that we had access to such models when we were studying medicine. Even if you are not a doctor, I think that such models are interesting because they help us to understand our bodies better.

Palazzo Poggi museum has different sections including astronomy, physics, geology, natural history, boats and war-strategy. In this post I have limited myself to the anatomy models, but other sections of the museum are also very interesting. It is a 14th century building with some truly wonderful frescoes. If you are planning a visit to Bologna, do not forget to visit this beautiful museum!

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Down the musical memories lane

This post has been stimulated by the book “How music works” by David Byrne of the Talking Heads music group. It is about my musical memories as well as, presentation of some of my music related images.

David Byrne’s book has been a revelation – bringing an understanding about an area about which I had never thought before. Most persons like or even love music. Yet, we have no idea about how music is made and appreciated today. In the book, Byrne writes:

“Just as theater is an actor and a writer’s medium, and cinema is a director’s medium, recorded music often came to be a producer’s medium, in which they could sometimes out-auteur the artists they were recording.”

This surprised me very much - would you have thought that recorded music is a producer's medium and not the medium of the artist singing or playing that music?

When films had changed from the silent era to the talkies, there was a big change and suddenly actors who had dominated the silent movie era, were left without work. Similarly, each technical change related to the music recording and distribution – from radios to gramophones to tape recorders to CD players to MP3 players, affected and changed the way the music was played, recorded and understood, Byrne explains in his book. Where you played the music, from a jukebox in a noisy bar or in a concert hall, also influenced it. For example, why does an average song’s duration is around three and a half minutes all over the world and across different languages and cultures? Read Byrne’s book if you like music, it gives you an insight into things about music that today we take for granted.

My musical memories

My first memories of music are linked to the Bush transistor my parents had bought in 1963. It was the time when Laxmikant Pyarelal had come out with Parasmani and were dominating all music charts. It was the time of Amin Sayani presenting the Binaca geetmala on radio Ceylon. Listening to radio Ceylon was not easy, finding the station on SW2 was tough, but there was no choice because at that time there were no sponsored programmes on Vividh Bharati. Guide had come out in 1965 and I remember the first time I had heard Kishore Kumar singing “Gaata rahe mera dil”.

Amin Sayani also did 15 minutes long film-trailor programmes that presented the main story, actors, some dialogues and songs from new films. I remember listening to one such programme about “Phool aur patthar” and Meena Kumari’s voice from that film.

Around 1966-67 I had first seen the gramophone with the handle on the side, that you had to crank up to listen to the LPs. One day I will also have a gramophone, I had promised myself.

Late 1960s had introduced me to the English pop music at my cousin’s home, when I had listened to "Delialah" by Tom Jones and the "Sunshine girl" by the Herman's Hermits.

Around that time I had discovered Forces’ Request on Delhi B on Friday evenings and thus found out Cliff Richards and Jim Reeves. Songs like “Outsider”, “The lemon tree” and “To sir with love”, had become my favourites.

During the 1970s, I had discovered the Hindustani classical music. My uncle had introduced me to “Nirguna bhajans” by Kumar Gandharav. Going to night concerts on Rafi Marg, and listening to giants like Vilayat Khan had suddenly made me appreciate Indian Ragas.

During 1970s, I still remember the first time I had heard Prabha Atre sing “Tan man dhan tope varun” and Mehdi Hassan sing “Awaraghi”. And I remember my first concert of Kishori Amonkar.

In the 1970s, my aunt had shifted to the staff quarters of Janaki Devi college in Rajendra Nagar and that had given opportunities to listen to maestros like Bhimsen Joshi and Pandit Jasraj.

I had come to the European symphonic music and the opera music only after I had come to Italy in 1980. Dvorak’s “In the new world” was the first symphony that I had liked and slowly it had opened the doors to appreciation of other composers, from Verdi to Beethoven. On the other hand, though I loved watching the operas like Aida and Madam Butterfly, I could not appreciate listening to them for a very long time. It is relatively recently that I have started enjoying listening to operas.

Over the last three decades, my work took me to different countries of the world and I started appreciating music from other languages, like Arabic music from Egypt and traditional polyphonic singing from Mongolia.

A visual music tour

Once I started searching for images related to music in my archives, I found that I have hundreds of them. Selecting a few for presenting here was not easy and I had to discard many images that I liked very much. Any way here is my selection.

Let me start with images of music from India - India has such a rich tradition of folk-music, Hindustani and Carnatak music and of course the film music. I like all the different kinds of Indian music.

Today where ever in the world you may live, you can usually listen to music from your country through the internet. However in the 1980s and most of 1990s, it was not so - finding Indian music in Italy was not easy. However, Hare Krishna groups had Indian bhajans and I remember buying a Hari Om Saran music cassette from them once. The image below of the Hare Krishna persons singing and dancing is from Prague.

Prague is also where I saw the wonderful sculptures of blindfolded musicians and dancers by Anna Chromy.

The next image is from London underground, that has a rich tradition of buskers playing music at tube stations and in the metro train. Acoustics of some of the tube stations is marvellous and some of the music I have heard in the tube station sounded absolutely amazing. Like I remember once listening to a busker playing Ravel's "Bolero" on a saxophone at the Piccadilly station, it was the most beautiful rendering of this music that I had ever heard.

London also has the long-standing musical show on Queen's Eddie Mercury - do you remember him singing "I want to break free"? Listening to him, made my blood pulse.

The next two images are from Vienna (Austria) - folk musicians from Slovenia and the statue of Mozart.

The next two images are from Brazil, from a school that teaches Amerindian and Afro music traditions to children to create awareness and respect for these two cultures that are often looked down in contemporary Brazil.

In different parts of the world the dominating cultures mean that the traditions of the indigenous people are seen as "inferior" - music can help us in changing perceptions and helping people to appreciate the value of other cultures. When I had visited the school in Brazil, I had asked myself if in India, the songs and music of Dalits and tribal groups have specific cultural characteristics in different states of India and are similarly ignored? Perhaps someone who knows more about this, can answer my question?

The next two images are from Mongolia. Mongolian traditional singing uses polyphonic sounds to create a special kind of music. I love these ancient melodies, usually sung by men, that seem to come from somewhere deep inside them. The second image has chanting of Buddhist prayers by the monks, an ancient tradition of sacred music that has the power to touch me deeply.

During my journeys in China, I had the opportunity to listen to both traditional music as well as the pop Chinese music. While ancient Chinese traditions received a blow during the cultural revolution and were ruthlessly crushed, in the last twenty years, many of those traditions have re-emerged. The next image presents a guy singing a modern song.

The next two images are from the annual buskers' festival held in Ferrara (Italy) in August. I love the street artists and thus I like visiting Ferrara to listening to them from different parts of the world.

The last images of this post are all from Bologna, the Italian city where I live. Bologna is culturally very active city and every visit to the city centre presents some new opportunity for listening to live music.

The next image is from the music museum of Bologna, one of the most interesting museums that I have seen, presenting notations, music books and instruments from different parts of the world.

The last image of this post is of Dr Ashwini Bhide, a Hindustani classical singer from India, during her performance in Bologna. I like her singing very much and one of her bhajans, "Ganapati vighnaharan" is my favourite. During her concert in Bologna, she had sung that bhajan for me and it remains one of my most cherished musical memories.

I hope that this post has stimulated your musical memories! Wish you all an enjoyful walk down your musical memories lane.

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