The music of concentration camps in Maestro about Francesco Lotoro

Music of concentration camps in Maestro about Francesco Lotoro 

After the preview on January 19 in Barletta, from today in cinemas Maestro, a documentary film by Alexandre Valenti.

The documentary film of the French-Argentine director tells the story of Francesco Lotoro, a pianist and composer from Barletta. Since thirty years this musician is totally committed to a very high artistic, cultural and human mission.

To find, store, and perform music composed in concentration camps during the Second World War.

An activity that has brought to light a surprising and extraordinary reality.

Among the prisoners there were outstanding, less known and unknown musicians and composers. Thanks to the testimonies of some survivors, it was became aware of this reality.

So how you learned about the music. In some cases spontaneously written. In other by order of the commanders of the field, for the German NCOs entertainment. In some cases then the musicians formed real orchestras, as in the women's division of Birkenau, or in Auschwitz or in Mauthausen.

Project Music of concentration camps

The project Music of concentration camps, conducted by Francesco Lotoro, wants to research, study, learn, create, categorize and enhance this vast repertoire. Fostering the knowledge of what happened in the concentration camps and the role of music in the lives of deportees. A temporary escape from the horrors and from the nightmare of reality around them.

Years of research conducted among the few survivors and their descendants, flea markets and attics have led to extraordinary results. 2,500 works already found, other 1500 to be verified, surveys in Memorials, museums, archives, libraries, specialized libraries in Italy, Israel, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic.

This material will soon find a suitable home.

In Barletta, on the area of the former disused distillery, will be built the Citadel of the concentration camps' music.

The film will have its international premiere tomorrow in Paris at the headquarters of UNESCO at World Heritage Centre. From January 27, Memorial Day, will begin a project that will involve schools.

Maestro is a French-Italian co-production. It makes use of the high patronage of UNESCO and the collaboration of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy.

In Italy it is distributed by Istituto Luce - Cinecittà and abroad by Zed.