In Bocconi, a Lecture concert Transforms the Classroom into Auditorium

On the afternoon of 23 February, at 4:15, Bocconi will resonate with the notes of Benny Goodman and other swing men of the Chicago 30's. Paolo Alderighi, teaches a course on the history of music in the CLEACC program at Bocconi and is a pianist at international level. He will open the doors of the Lecture Hall A (via Sarfatti 25) to clarinetist Alfredo Ferrario, drummer Christian Meyer (of Elio e le Storie Tese), that with him form the Color Swing Trio, and the American pianist Stephanie Trick. The goal is simple: to transform the lesson into a lecture-concert open to all, explaining the rhythm, melody and structure of the jazz of that period not only with the aid of the blackboard, but by grabbing their instruments.

"You can't teach music without letting people hear it," says Paolo Alderighi, who shares the course with fellow professor Andrea Garavaglia. "A lesson concert is definitely more stimulating than listening to a recording. Students can take the human element underlying the music and discover how vast the world of sound.really is."

And they become, among other things, active participants and not just spectators of the performance. Like when Christian Meyer, to demonstrate a particular timbre of the snare drum, gets help from the students to play on a copy of a newspaper, or when Alderighi challenges them to clap in time with the accents of the beat. Or to recognize the famous opera aria hidden in the melody of a popular jazz song. A different way of doing a lesson, and certainly anything but boring.