The award celebrates the lives and activities of those who have overcome challenges to reach their goals and recognizes the winners’ dedication to family and society. Theirs are all different stories in their evolution, but all marked by a common and strong sense of belonging to the Terra Iblea. The true essence of the cultural prize is inherent in research and in the promotion of human affairs belonging to people of Ragusa of birth or origin, who have achieved significant milestones abroad in the field of their respective activities.

For more information, contact Sebastiano D’Angelo at sebadangelo@virgilio.it.

My family has always been extremely devoted to the Patron Saint of Pace del Mela (Me): Maria SS. della Visitazione. My grandfather was the treasurer of the brotherhood named after the Madonna. July 2nd is the day Pace del Mela, my hometown, celebrates its patron saint. It is one of the town’s main celebrations of the summer.

As a child I was waiting for this feast so badly. I am called after the Madonna and remember feeling like everybody was celebrating me. There is a week-long events preceding the big procession, which starts from the Parish Church in Pace Alta after the mass is celebrated at 6PM. We used to have a big meal at my grandparents’ after the procession and then back to Pace Alta to celebrate with the music played by the municipal band and to wait for the fireworks late at night.

I miss the atmosphere around the event and the trepidation that my grandparents had in getting ready for this day. I will celebrate the 4th of July here in the USA. Still a big celebration with fireworks in my adopted land

Sicilian Restaurant “Valentino Sul Mare”
7330 Ocean Terrace, Miami Beach, FL 33141,
Phone: (305) 866-8444
Date: Wednesday July 8th, 2009 at 7:30pm
Please RSVP at emanueleviscuso@gmail.com.
The cost will be $55.00 all included (food, tax, tip, wine).
Cancellation must be received by July 6th.

Yesterday, I was very brief with my message and apologize for this. I met with the export manager of Fratelli Contorno. The company is from Palermo and produces seasonings for pasta. Azienda Agricola Gangi Dante sells oregano and other Sicilian spices. Here are the pictures of other stands. Everything is absolutely delicious! I hope American tasters will take note of this.

Sicily is at the Fancy Food Show in NYC these days!

For the photostream, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/97382183@N00/

It is the first time in 20 years that an Italian film has headlined the Venice event, one of Europe’s top three film festivals.

The festival, to run Sept. 2-12, will announce a full lineup in July.

Baaria, which follows three generations in Tornatore’s hometown of Bagheria in Sicily, will be competing for the Golden Lion, the top award. Baaria is Sicilian slang for Bagheria.

More at CBCNews.ca

More>>

Walter Zenga risked the wrath of half of Sicily on Friday by signing a three-year deal to coach Palermo only days after leaving island rivals Catania.

The former Italy goalkeeper, who has expertly kept Catania in Serie A for the past two seasons, had been linked in the media with Lazio.

“He has signed a three-year deal,” Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini told reporters.

More >>

Ansa reports that the Italian government on Wednesday unveiled a new package of measures to boost the country’s tourism sector through 1.6 billion euros in loans from private banks.The initiative was presented by Premier Silvio Berlusconi and Tourism Minister Michela Vittoria Brambilla who said the project was unprecedented for its scope, the level of funding made available and number banks involved.

”Tourism is a sector which has a great potential for expansion and can contribute to boosting the nation’s GDP. According to the United Nations, over the next five years 1.2 billion people will travel,” Berlusconi said at the presentation. ”Until a few years ago Italy was the country with the greater number of works of art on show but now this is no longer the case. We have been surpassed by the United States, China, France and Spain. And this is unacceptable,” he added. ”Our goal is for tourism to account for 20% of GDP by the end of the current legislature (in four years). At present its accounts for 10% compared to 17% in Spain,” the premier said.

It is great Italy finally has a plan, but these are all good words. We will see how they are going to be put into practice. The main problem will be to have the regions work together. There is too much fragmentation and the marketing message that Italy could deliver with one voice is spread out and weak abroad. Also, to have the Italian GDP rely on tourism for 20% is a bit scary too me. I wish tourism could grow 20%, but not become 20% of Italy’s GDP. Tourism is a volatile industry and to have a country rely so much on it can be another mistake.

It had originally been reported that the schools would be temporarily closed.

Read more

Speaking to SkyItalia in the post-match interview, club coach Davide Ballardini admitted his side are still lacking that certain somethingthat would allow them to compete for the European slots.

More at Goal.com

However, he warned that Udinese can also join the race, as they are just behind them and going through an excellent run of form.

More at Goal.com

More at Telegraph.co.uk

Sicilians have never let death spoil a good party. Every day at the monastery in Savoca you can find a gathering of nobles, all dressed in their top hats, robes, buckled shoes and corduroy suits. They stoop and grin, and wring their papery hands. The only odd thing about this particular get-together is that everyone’s been dead for more than 130 years.

Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

Last century, Taormina was a haven for expat artists, writers and intellectuals, with the likes of D.H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh finding the atmosphere conducive to creativity.

More at MailOnline.com

“What I can say is that an agreement has been reached,” he said to Mediagol.it, “but we need to have a bit of patience. The negotiations are continuing, soon we could put an end to this issue.

More at Goal.com

More at ItalyItalia.com

The grapes go to make a dessert wine called Passito, a complex creation with a wide and dense fragrance and a heady alcohol content of 14 percent.

Despite the arduous growing conditions on this Mediterranean outcrop between Sicily and Africa, sommelier Giacomo Rallo feels “a boundless passion” for the rocky island where the wind blows constantly.

More at JakartaGlobe.com

Italian mafia gangs have reportedly muscled their way into lucrative wind farm construction deals.

With European subsidies making wind power a hugely profitable business, the omerta guys have gone PC by weaseling their way into projects across Sicily and in several projects on the mainland.

More at NewDailyNews.com

“Some music relaxes you, the other one excites you… but the Sicilian sound enters inside and massages your heart”, says Sally Veillete, the founder of the project, obviously moved. “That is the reason we will do everything and more to transport this mythical Sicilian sound into the world”.

Veillette and her group traveled around of the island to search the best young voices to produce a musical CD. The plan is to distribute it outside Italy.

Among the singers were: Alessia Caruso, Chiara Tumino from the Ragusa province; Pamela Catanzaro and Davide Salvo from Messina; brother and sister Nicola and Paola Gruppuso from Alcamo; Antonella Rametta and Giulia Badaglialacqua.

“Studio Audience”, a TV channnel in Agrigento, invited these young singers to a TV performance. Time and date to be determined.

For more information, please visit www.suonosiciliano.com.

More at FT.com

More at Teatronaturale.com

If you are in Sicily during that time of the year, I strongly suggest a stop in Syracuse. Even if the performances are going to be in Italian, it does not really matter: the enjoyment of taking being part of such an old tradition will make the visit worthwhile. Tickets start at €22.

This year dramas are:
Medea by Euripides
Oedipus at Colono by Sofocle

General information:
Archeological Site of Syracuse (Unesco World Heritage Site)
Address: Via Rizzo/Via Paradiso, Syracuse

Tel.: (0931) 662 06

INDA di Palazzo Greco
Corso Matteotti 29, Siracusa
Phone: (+39) 0931 - 48 72 48
Fax: (+39) 0931 - 48 72 49
http://www.indafondazione.org/

For tickets:
http://www.indafondazione.org/stagione/2009/biglietteria.php

One of the leading composers of the European avant-garde, Salvatore Sciarrino is a self-taught composer. His music — intimate and evolving at the frontier of sound (or variation of sonorities) — has been acclaimed for leading to a different way of listening. His body of works exhibits more 160 works and 70 CDs, including the 2006 opera Da gelo a gelo, performed by the Opéra National de Paris and Grand Théâtre de Genève. Sciarrino served as director of Bologna’s Teatro Communale from 1987 to 1990, and he has taught at the Milan, Perugia and Florence conservatories. He has won many awards, among the most recent are: Prince Pierre de Monaco (2003) and the prestigious Feltrinelli International Award (Premio Internazionale Feltrinelli) (2003). He is also the first prize-winner of the newly created Salzburg Music Prize (2006), an international composition prize established by the Salzburg Land.

“Salvatore Sciarrino’s music evolves in a frontier zone, gripped by a fear of large uninhabited spaces, and especially of marine desert, at the edge of dreams, where being lies but still hesitates to give itself over to existence. This geography becomes flesh in an “imaginal” world, between the realm of earth and the realm of spirit, in the articulation between the intelligible and the sensual: the world of what the Latins called the caro spiritualis [spiritual corporality], where spirits become bodies and bodies spirits.”
Mr. Sciarrino is a very interesting artist, and I have no doubt this interview could make a great piece.

WHEN: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 8:00pm

WHERE: Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, 1941 Broadway at 65th Street, New York

WHO: The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble
FLUX Quartet
Ostravská banda
Hana Kotková Violin
Daan Vandewalle, Piano
Petr Kotik, Conductor

PROGRAM:
Christian Wolff: Trio for Robert Ashley (premiere)
Salvatore Sciarrino: Vento D’ombra (American premiere)
Petr Kotik: String Quartet No.1 Erinnerungen an Jan (premiere)
Elliott Carter: Dialogues for Piano and Orchestra
György Ligeti: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

TICKETS:
$15 at the Alice Tully Hall box office
Call CenterCharge: 212.721.6500 or visit www.lincolncenter.org
For more information, call 718-488-7659

I am inside one of the most glittering monuments to Christianity—the mosaic-filled cathedral of Monreale - talking to a conservator, whose apron is covered in Arabic script, about President Obama.
As our chat about possible new American policies in the Middle East interrupts his excruciatingly slow restoration of the Duomo’s 900-year-old floor mosaic, I can’t help thinking, only in Sicily.

More at MercuryNews.com

A stay on the outskirts of a nature reserve could be the ideal place to discover another side of Sicily, the one with unspoilt nature, with small mountain villages full of history and culture situated in the Parco delle Madonie or on the slopes of the Mount Etna, or also to enjoy a memorable holiday exploring the unique landscape of Trapani salt pans. DiCasaInSicilia offers a great variety of accommodation in the vicinity of the regional parks and of the island’s nature reserves.

For more info, please go to www.dicasainsicilia.com

The red-wine darling of the moment is malbec from Argentina, but there are pretenders to the throne, including one you might not have heard of: Nero d’Avola. Native to southern Italy and now grown almost exclusively in Sicily, Nero d’Avola is an excellent partner for casual fare such as burgers or pizza. As its pedigree suggests, it is also ideal for Mediterranean-style foods, including grilled chicken and fish.

More at WashingtonPost.com

Vittorio Sgarbi, a man in the public eye who courts controversy, has taken up the case of Salemi, a Sicilian town destroyed in an earthquake. He’s offering homes for barely more than a dollar.

In 1968, an earthquake devastated this ancient hilltop town crowned by a castle, littering the place with thousands of abandoned homes and submerging it in a slumber that lasted decades. Until another force of nature hit Salemi.

More at LATimes.com

The home side played in a 3-4-1-2 formation with Giovanni Tedesco behind Edinson Cavani and Davide Succi in attack, while new Bologna coach Giuseppe Papadopulo, who just replaced Sinisa Mihajlovic, opted for a 3-5-2 line up with Massimo Marazzina and Marco Di Vaio up front.

More at Goal.com

More at the Examiner.com

The Italian island is known more for its Mafia connections than its property market but real estate is starting to open up as people become less concerned with holding onto the ancient family pile…

More at http://www.propertywire.com/news/europe/sicily-emerge-property-market-recovers-200904042889.html

More at About.com

Wine
It is a IGT Sicily (Typical Geographical Indication ) red wine, obtained through the vinification of 100% “cultivar merlot” grapes.
Year of production : 2006
The trend of climate in 2006 was particularly favorable; winter was rainy and cold; spring was mild; it was followed by a hot summer (especially in June and July), and dry (with sirocco winds) in August. Harvested from 18th to 20th of August, the grapes undergo a classic red wine vinification with derasping and maceration of the skins (at 25-28 °C of temperature) followed by an alcoholic and malolactic fermentation. Wine was refined in steel tuns for one year. The alcoholic content is 14°-14.5° vol.

More at http://www.teatronaturale.com/article/358.html

More at Goal.com

http://www.mikechasty.com/templesofsilence.html