Una Striscia di Terra Feconda (a Strip of Fertile Land)

The jazz and improvised music festival Una Striscia di Terra Feconda, born in 1998, will reach its twenty-seventh edition in 2024. For years now it has taken place in Rome at the Casa del Jazz and in the Gianni Borgna studio theater thanks to the agreement with the Musica per Roma Foundation, while equally significant are the productions designed ad hoc for prestigious places such as the Lido di Ostia theatre, the Spazio Rossellini in the Roman suburbs and in Civitavecchia, in the splendid Cittadella della Musica, in collaboration with ATCL (theatre association of the municipalities of Lazio). The artistic directors Paolo Damiani, Armand Meignan and Roberto Catucci have always defended and valorised European jazz with conviction, sharing the same poetics: Meignan founded Europajazz in 1980, the first ever to have imagined new paths for European jazz research. Damiani created Rumori Mediterranei in Roccella Jonica in 1981, planning new experiments for over thirty years starting from our ethnic roots, linked to popular singing and the sounds and silences of Southern Italy.The Festival so far has been dedicated exclusively to Italian and French artists often invited to play together; from 2024 we have decided to open to Europe by inviting not only Italian but also German musicians, in agreement with a prestigious partner, the Goethe Institute of Rome. However, there will be no shortage of Polish artists in co-production with the Polish Cultural Institute in Rome, and musicians from Sweden, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Serbia.

As always, the space for young talents is significant, thanks also to the French Jazzmigration device, of which we will host the Prospectus quartet.Other key points of the festival are the SIAE AWARD, in agreement with the prestigious monthly Musica Jazz (the most authoritative Italian specialized magazine), the first new talents emerging from the Top Jazz ranking, one of the most significant annual referendums, are invited to play together. The 2024 winners will be announced in January 2024.And the ARTIST'S RESIDENCE, whose protagonists will be the winners of the national tender issued by Midj, the national association of jazz musicians. The group will be selected in May 2024 and will host the well-known French double bass player Sarah Murcia.For the section dedicated to children in collaboration with IJVAS (jazz goes to school association): the workshop/concert for children and young people who play and/or sing in 2023 was directed by the well-known composer and saxophonist Cristiano Arcelli: The Winner is: “Marcovaldo”, a small suite for young improvisers who, as in Calvino's story, acted in four sound environments: you play, you improvise, you observe and you adapt. In 2024 the laboratory will be animated by the composer Massimo Nunzi.A strip of fertile land is also characterized by the unprecedented synergy not only of ideas but also of economic resources that has been created between public partners of the highest prestige who have financed it in recent years: the Ministry of Culture (MiC), the Regional Museums Directorate of Lazio (MiC), the French Ministry of Culture, the SIAE, the Municipality of Rome - Department of Cultural Policies, the Lazio Region, the Musica per Roma Foundation and the House of Jazz, the French Embassy in Rome through the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation, Midj (jazz musicians association), the INPS PSMSAD fund. And also: AJC (Jazzé Croisé association), CNM (Centre National de la Musique), Institut Français, SACEM, SPEDIDAM, ADAMI, SPPF, BNP Parisbas, CCP.