Under 13 Orchestra is a project with great social value, an exercise in solidarity, integration and collaboration, dedicated to all children without distinction or selection. The process begins in public schools with the U13O ‘nurseries’, which children and adolescents access to a great symphonic orchestra.
Primary schools are indeed the place where it all begins, where children start to experience music and instruments like the violin, cello, flute, clarinet and percussions. They are immediately placed together in a musical 'team' to start preparing for their first concerts during after school hours. Every year, these young musicians, including newcomers, have the possibility to play in theatres selected for them by the Foundation La Nuova Musica where groups from a variety of schools join together to perform.
Seeing two hundred children play together on stage after only a few months, is always a great testament to how everyone’s individual expertise becomes a joint, concrete artistic result, motivating them to continue and progress. Each year, new musicians enter the ‘nurseries’ and others move up to the next study phase with their newly acquired expertise, becoming part of the orchestra that has weekly sectional rehearsals and biweekly general rehearsals with the Director, in order to prepare for their concerts. Finally, the Under 13 Orchestra often aggregates children in the nurseries and sections into one large group of performers, especially in fundraising events to help less fortunate children.
Students who remain part of the sections for a number of years become tutors and follow the younger ones in their rehearsals and concerts. In 12 years of activity across three regions (Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria), 30 nurseries and 40 sections have been activated, with 14 children becoming tutors.
Under 13 Orchestra was born in 2003 out of the La Nuova Musica Foundation and in over 10 years has achieved great results, including over 40 concerts in important theatres and prestigious collaborations that range from classical music, to jazz and pop. Amongst the collaborators, we should highlight Giorgio Gaslini, Cecilia Chailly and Marco Betta for classical music; Enrico Pirannunzi and Sandro Cerino on jazz performances; Paola Turci, Antonella Ruggiero and Ron in pop music; ballet dancer Beatrice Carbone; and as actors and narrators in their concerts, Maurizio Nichetti, Linus and Gigio Alberti.
Furthermore Andrea Camilleri wrote 'La Magaria', a fairytale that has been set to music for the Under 13 Orchestra by Marco Betta and of which a short film was made with the direction of Rocco Mortelliti. Giorgio Gaslini also wrote a Suite specifically for the Under 13 Orchestra that premiered at the Milan Conservatory in 2013, as have musicians such as jazz player Enrico Pirannunzi, Cecilia Chailly, Sandro Cerino and Emiliano Palmieri among others.
The orchestra has participated in Festivals and concerts with an entire new symphonic repertoire containing scores chosen by the Ricordi Archive among which we should highlight Verdi and Rossini, Schubert's unfinished, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Prokofieff's Peter and the Wolf, Bartok's Romanian Dances and Shostakovich's Jazz Suite.
For years it has collaborated with Mito Festival in the show 'Facciamo Musica Insieme' and it was chosen by Filarmonica della Scala for three consecutive years for the Sound Music project, performing in numerous concerts for children in public schools. In these occasions the orchestra was directed by Marcello Sirotti.