A preview of music, film, theater, dance and more

Poetic contemplation

To mark the recent release of the collected poems of Italian writer Antonella Anedda the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago and the Department of French and Italian at Northwestern University will present a conversation with the poet and her translator, Patrizio Ceccagnoli, moderated by Massimiliano Delfino. Scheduled for 4 p.m. on April 29 at Northwestern University, the event will begin with a bilingual poetry reading of the author’s work, followed by a round table discussion on poetry, languages and translation. For more, click here.

Blues legend

Legendary Italian singer-songwriter Zucchero will bring his Overdose D’Amore World Tour to the Copernicus Center in Chicago on May 16. Inspired during his youth by American roots music, he is credited with introducing blues to the large stage in Italy. Born Adelmo Fornaciari, the award-winning musician has sold more than 60 million records in the course of a 40-year career. Among his many honors are four Festivalbar, nine Wind Music, two World Music and six Europe Platinum awards as well as a Grammy nomination. Over the decades, he has collaborated with the likes of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, B. B. King, Sting, Bono, Bryan Adams, Peter Gabriel, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli. For more, click here.

Corporate skullduggery

Italian Film Festival USA will present “Palazzina LAF” at 6:30 p.m. on May 3 in Kresge Hall 1-515 at Northwestern University in Evanston. Based on a true story, the movie follows Caterino, a steelworker in Taranto, who is assigned to a special building at his workplace that’s secretly designed to psychologically break unwanted workers and force them to resign. For more, click here.

Stellar women

The Michael Teolis Singers will present “Grandes Dames of the Black Chicago Renaissance” on May 4 at the First United Methodist Church in Oak Park. The concert will feature the music of Chicago composers and musicians Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Lena McLin, Betty Jackson King, Irene Britton Smith and Regina Harris Baiocchi. The centerpiece of the concert is Bonds’ “Credo,” dedicated to the memories of her close friends Abbie Mitchell and Langston Hughes and featuring a text by W.E.B. Du Bois. The founder of the ensemble, Michael Teolis, traces his roots to Italy on both sides of his family. For more, click here.

Surf’s up!

The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago will present a concert by Italian Surf Academy on May 11 at the Hungry Brain in Chicago. Led by New York-based guitarist Marco Cappelli, the band serves up a blend of “spaghetti western, exotica and Tex-Mex, marinated in vintage Italian sauce,” according to their website. A third of the set list will be dedicated to their album “Barbarella Reloaded,” a surf reinterpretation of the iconic 1968 movie’s soundtrack. The suite “Morricone Dissolving” will follow, and the evening will be capped by “Echoes of Mario Bava,” a mix of B-movie horror music and the Hawaiian sound of American composer Martin Denny, known as the “Father of Exotica.” For more, click here.

Talent unbound

Italian Film Festival USA will present “Grazie Ragazzi” at 7 p.m. on June 5 at the Northbrook Public Library. The movie follows Antonio, an unemployed actor who find fulfillment running a theater workshop for inmates at a local penitentiary. In the process, he discovers talent in the unlikely company of prisoners while rekindling his passion for theater. For more, click here.

Multifaceted artist

Rare Nest Gallery in Chicago will host a Tom Palazzolo retrospective through June 15. Palazzolo is widely known as one of Chicago’s most important experimental filmmakers. But Rare Nest will feature his work as a printmaker, painter, photographer and sculpture in this first-ever comprehensive restrospective. Palazzolo earned a bachelor’s degree and master of fine arts in photography from the School of the Art Institute and became part of the underground film scene in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s. In the mid-1960s, Palazzolo and a group of friends formed the Floating Cinematheque, a secret film society that met in apartments around Chicago and created films that earned the wrath of the Chicago Police Censor Board. For more, click here.

Keeping the flame alive

Andrea Falcone is a musician on a mission. He seeks neither fame nor fortune. Instead, he and the fellow members of La Tosca Italian Mambo Ensemble are dedicated to performing and preserving the folk music of Italy. Featuring master accordion, violin, mandolin, stand-up bass and guitar players, the group is co-led by Falcone’s wife, Stephanie Pielok. “We perform a repertoire from the 1850s to the 1950s: tarantella, pizzica and tammurriata from Italy but also tango, fox trot, mazurka, and the music of the Romany, including gypsy jazz,” says Falcone, a native of Milan. La Tosca will perform at Hexe Coffee Co. in Chicago every Thursday and Pizza Metro in Chicago every Saturday April through June. For more, click here.

Sumptuous showcase

European history buffs will have a field day at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Deering Family Galleries of Medieval and Renaissance Art, Arms and Armor. Unveiled in 2017, the expansive exhibit showcases nearly 700 objects from the museum’s rich holdings of art from 1200 to 1600 as well as an extensive arms and armor collection. Among the Italian items on display are a terra-cotta altarpiece by Florentine Benedetto Buglioni, works of art for the bedchambers of Tuscany’s merchant elite, and a tempera-on-panel diptych of the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Crucifixion (pictured). For more, click here.