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Music, Ageing, and Dementia – the 'Comusichiamo' project

Catherine Kovesi • Oct 17, 2021

Music, Ageing and Dementia: Accessing the power of music, language, and song composition to improve the wellbeing of Italian migrants living with dementia in Australia.

ACIS Honorary Research Fellow, Dr Simone Marino, has completed the first data collection for his HRA project 'Music, Aging and Dementia: Accessing the power of music, language, and song composition to improve wellbeing of Italian migrants living with dementia in Australia', under the mentorship of Professor Loretta Baldassar.

 

Simone has been engaged in data collection from older Italian migrants who live in Adelaide, either in residential care facilities, or in their own homes with home-care services. Whilst the project focus is on people with dementia,  the participants’ cognitive conditions vary, and the project has also  included older Italian migrants who have not been diagnosed with dementia but who were keen to participate.

 

The aim of the project is to develop a music engagement program to stimulate cultural memory, social identity, and mental activity through emotions that participants re-experience by engaging with music and stories that remind them of their past or home country. 


Simone’s music engagement programme also includes a process of co-writing songs with participants (and their families) – a process he methodologically calls 'comusichiamo'.  These songs are written in the participants’ first language, and are related to their migration stories.

 

Simone’s unique methodology combines ethnography, participant observation and qualitative interviews to monitor patterns of cultural and social engagement through music; a methodological framework at the intersection between ethnomusicology and music therapy. Simone provided participants with ten individual sessions in which they (and family members) told him about their life stories. Based on these stories, Simone composed a tailored song for each participant.

 

On Wednesday 22 September 2021 Simone delivered a concert for the residents of Saint Hilarion Aged Care in Adelaide. This aged care facilitiy was founded by the migrant community from Caulonia in Calabria and is named after the town's patron saint. At this concert, Simone played old Italian songs in front of approximately 40 residents who enjoyed singing and listening to the songs. During the concert Simone also performed the tailored songs he had composed. Participants, their families and the staff were greatly appreciative of the outcome. 

New Subjects and Stories of Baroque Art: Hamilton Gallery

04 Mar, 2024
Open until 14 April 2024, the exhibition Emerging From Darkness: Faith, Emotion and The Body in the Baroque is presented at Victoria's Hamilton Gallery (on the unceded lands of the Eastern Maar and Gunditjmara peoples), in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). Unprecedented, and monumental in scope, Emerging From Darkness brings together an exceptional group of works from public and private collections in Australia. It was curated by Associate Professor David R. Marshall , Principal Fellow in Art History at the University of Melbourne, Dr Lisa Beaven , Adjunct Senior Research at La Trobe University, and Laurie Benson , Senior Curator of International Art at the NGV. Here two curators explain some of the project’s background and aims.

In Podcast: 1873–2023, Alessandro Manzoni’s Legacy

27 Oct, 2023
In Italy this year there has been no shortage of Manzoni celebrations, particularly in Milan . And in Australasia? Dr Stefano Bona , Lecturer in Italian Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, on the lands of the Kauna nation, has lately been involved in creating a ‘special miniseries’ of radio programmes about Alessandro Manzoni. Now available for listening on demand are two longform interviews with Stefano Pratola at Radio Italiana 531 AM. Here Stefano Bona shares some background to this podcast project.

Awarded: Two ACIS Prizes, Two Notable Publications

14 Sep, 2023
Announcing, with great pleasure, the winners of the 2023 ACIS Publication Prize for an established scholar, and the 2023 Jo-Anne Duggan Prize. ACIS awards both prizes every two years . In this case, each winning publication addresses the theme of mobility – a fast-evolving direction in Italian Studies research – and each brings forward a topic with clear contemporary significance.

Save the Date: ACIS 12th Biennial Conference, 3–6 July 2024

04 Sep, 2023
The 12th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies will be held at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country, from Wednesday 3 July to Saturday 6 July 2024. The conference theme is ‘Italian Studies for Global Challenges: Transdisciplinary Conversations’.

Announcing the 2023 ACIS Save Venice Fellow

24 Aug, 2023
Open to postgraduate and early career researchers, since 2018 the ACIS Save Venice Fellowship programme has been enlivening close links between Australasia and the city of Venice. Fellowship applications were suspended in 2022, for pandemic-related reasons. So it is a special pleasure to announce that Brigette De Poi has been awarded an ACIS Save Venice Fellowship for 2023. Already living in Venice to focus on her PhD project, Brigette shares some first reflections on her contact with Save Venice thus far.

Looking for Forgetting in the Archive

08 Aug, 2023
Which memories are allowed to circulate in a particular culture – and which are relegated or silenced? What political logic is at play when a certain way of remembering is spelt out, even imposed? Matthew Topp was awarded an ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship in 2020, to source archival records for his doctoral thesis, which has the working title ‘ Ars Oblivionalis : A Study of Cultural Forgetting in Renaissance Italy’. Now returned from fieldwork, he shares a brief account of his PhD project and travels.

Two early career scholars reflect on their time as ACIS Save Venice Fellows

By Catherine Kovesi • 02 Apr, 2023
Two promising early career scholars – Lauren Murphy and Julia Pelosi-Thorpe – were the recipients of ACIS Save Venice Fellowships. Delayed due to COVID travel restrictions, they were finally able to access their Fellowships in 2022. Here they both reflect on their time in Venice and the benefits of the Fellowship to their respective research projects.

Announcing a new Chair and new team at the helm of ACIS

By Catherine Kovesi • 29 Mar, 2023
ACIS is delighted to announce that Professor Andrea Rizzi has been appointed the new Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies. He leads a renewed Management Committee with several new appointees who start their terms of office this year.

ACIS Postgraduate Scholarship Winners 2023

By Catherine Kovesi • 30 Jan, 2023
After a hiatus of three years due to travel restrictions, ACIS is delighted once again to be able to offer its Postgraduate Scholarships for Research in Italy. Two promising postgraduate students have been awarded scholarships in the current round: Brigette De Poi and Laura Di Blasi.
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