As much of campus packed up to visit home for the long weekend, some students gathered in the Underwood Room on Friday evening to enjoy the casual atmosphere of an Italian street fair complete with food and student musicians.
The Italian Culture Festival, hosted by the Italian Culture Club, is the club’s first solo event.
“This was inspired by an Italian street fair, [with] some music, artists, food, drinks. [It’s] just casual and so everyone [can] have a good time,” said Chavolla-Zacarias ’12.
Plates of festive Italian cookies adorned each table and board members passed around slices of red, white and green cake.
Guests attempted to incorporate Italian phrases into their conversations using slips of paper that translated simple English sentences into Italian.
The Festival included musical entertainment, and the first act of the night featured the D’Alelio Brothers, Drew ’12 and Alec ’14, and Lucas Christopherson ’12.
The trio first performed “Chasing Cars,” by Snow Patrol. Despite initial technical difficulties, Drew and Alec showed off admirable singing voices.
Next, the trio played a touching rendition of the Dave Matthews Band’s “Baby Blue.”
Christopherson displayed impressive vocal acrobatics as he reached increasingly higher tenor notes.
Finally, the trio concluded its act with “Send Me on My Way” by Rusted Root.
This song was slightly faster than the previous two, and the skilled guitar playing of the D’Alelio brothers created a more upbeat, hopeful rendition.
“[The D’Alelio’s] were awesome. It was really short notice and I’m glad we could get them to come,” said Audrey Burnim ’13, Secretary for the Italian Culture Club.
Next up was Pietro Bondi ’12, who sang two Italian songs. First he sang an acoustic rendition of a popular Italian song, “Voglia di Dance All Night,” originally by Eiffel 65.
Without the typical throbbing beats of a dance song, Bondi’s vocals and guitar playing transformed the song into a more genuine but no less energetic performance.
Leaving the guitar for computer generated background instrumentals of violins, Bondi then sang “Imbranato,” an Italian pop love ballad by world famous singer Tiziano Ferro, with a refrain of “ti amo, ti amo.”
“It’s a pretty important song for me. It’s a love song. Tiziano Ferro is a really good singer as well as a composer. The other song is a really really famous dance song and I just wanted to remix it. I think I did an okay job, but the original song is really great,” said Bondi.
“I think it went well. Pietro always really engages with the audience. And it’s also great to have real Italian people perform at an event like this. Only at Andover could you have something like this,” said Angela Leocata ’12, co-president of the Italian Culture Club.
Finally, the Yorkies serenaded Julie Zhou ’13.
Although only three members were able to perform, Hemang Kaul ’13 rounded out the casual night with a comical, improvisational song “Part-Time Model” by Flight of the Conchords. “You’re so beautiful, you could be an air hostess in the ‘60’s. You’re so beautiful, you could be a part-time model,” Kaul sang humorously while strumming a guitar.
Kaul’s dead-pan rendition accompanied by backup singers Adam Brody ’14 and Ben Croen ’13 drew laughter from the audience.
“I think this event went really nicely. It’s sort of nice to have a very relaxed event, especially winter term, right before a long weekend, when everyone’s tired. So I think it’s nice to just come here and hang out with friends and have some food and listen to music,” said Maita Ezzyguirre ’14.
The Italian Culture Club is a new club, formed by Co-Heads Omegar Chavolla-Zacarias ’12 and Leocata and aims to promote Italian Culture on campus.
Although the club does not have any official members because it was formed after the club rally in the fall, the board meets every week to organize its plans for the next term and year
“We started this year, and we don’t really meet every week. What we do is we sponsor events supporting the Italian culture. The board meets every week to plan events. This is our first solo event. We participated in I-fest in the fall, and we’re doing this [event] this term and we’re planning another event in the spring,” said Chavolla-Zacarias.
“We wanted to get our club name out. We’re new, [and] we’re just started,” said Burnim.
