Q&A

  Passionate about opera in general and lesser known Italian works in particular, Emanuele Andrizzi has set his sights on launching the Midwest’s first opera festival. Conductor, composer and pianist Dr. Emanuele Andrizzi caps his emails with the declaration of another Italian artist, World War I-era writer Gabriele D’Annunzio: “Ama il tuo sogno se pur ti tormenta,” or “Love your dream even though it torments you.” It’s a refreshing tonic to the somewhat mushy 21st-Century mantra “do what you love.” And it defines Andrizzi’s steady path toward artistic mastery. Grit and persistence characterize Andrizzi, who started learning his craft, honing …

    Arriving in Hollywood in 1979 to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, Leo Grillo’s life was transformed by a dream of a completely different sort. The majestic creature came to Leo Grillo in dream after dream after dream. Not that those visions meshed exactly with his occupational dream at the time. It was 1979, and Grillo, the new kid in town, was working hard to get his Hollywood career off the ground. Then came a plot twist straight out of Tinseltown. For no specific reason, Grillo embarked on a road trip to Bakersfield, some 100 miles north …

With gratitude, grit and generosity, Walter S. Arnold is on a mission to save an Italian cemetery’s incredible, endangered works. To see Michelangelo’s sculptures of the Unfinished Slaves — a 16th-century project meant for the tomb of Pope Julius II, but abandoned when the money ran out — is to behold figures clenched in an eternal, tortured struggle to break loose from the marble that encases them. They bear mute testimony to what the artist once said, that he worked to liberate forms imprisoned in marble: that his job was simply to remove the extraneous. And many sculptures must be …

Her family has made music strings for hundreds of years. As head of the D’Addario Foundation, Suzanne D’Addario Brouder toils to make music education possible for underserved kids. Imagine growing up among music royalty, the guitar-string makers to the stars. These days, the roll call of artists using D’Addario strings includes the likes of Keith Urban, Dave Matthews, Joe Satriani, Al Di Meola, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits — and if you’ve got a few hours, we could supply you a list of hundreds more. Is it fair to say that the D’Addario family — which has been at this …

A first-time filmmaker, she took her passion for an Italian-American tradition to the finals of a prestigious national cinema competition. There are many who feel they have a film inside of them, but few who have the vision and gumption to make that dream a video reality. And for those who get at least that far, the results often bear an amateurish, awkward stamp. Given those obstacles, Kirsten Keppel’s emergence as a documentary filmmaker is, indeed, the stuff of movie legend. Keppel turned her fascination with ancestry into artistry in her 2017 documentary “Ringraziamenti: The Saint Joseph’s Day Table Tradition.” …

By bringing stories of Calabrian-American bravery to light, he is adding chapters to our history that would otherwise have been lost. The saying “history is written by the winners” typically applies to military forces that dominate and subjugate, but one person has turned that notion on its head in the most positive sense. In his painstaking research into long gone Calabrian-American veterans, Peter Belmonte has achieved a victory for scores of humble heroes whose stories would otherwise have been lost in the trenches of World War I. Why do this? It helps that Belmonte is a retired U.S. Air Force …

As the second female president of the recently renamed Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America, she taps into a long history of volunteer leadership. Honoring tradition while staying open to unprecedented change is one very tough balancing act. It takes a strong, sure-handed leader to make it work. Enter Vera Girolami, who became national president of the recently renamed Order Sons and Daughters of Italy in America in August after serving for more than a decade in other executive roles. By the way, she’s only the second female president in the 112-year history of the organization, which added …