Nick Virzi

Soprano, Mezzo-Soprano, Countertenor, Tenor, Baritone, Bass, Pre-Recorded Narration, and Film

Composer's Note:

In Linguaglossa, I explored my own family history by adapting text from the travel journals of my father, John D. Virzi, and film from the personal collection of my great-uncle, Leonardo DiBella. The text was written in 1986 during my father's pilgrimage to our ancestral home of Lercara Friddi in Sicily, Italy. The film was recorded between 1965-1987 in Passopisciaro, Piedimonte Etneo, and Taormina in Sicily, as well as Astoria, Queens in New York.

Linguaglossa is a small town at the base of Mt. Etna in Sicily, formed at the divergent point of a volcanic lava stream in 1566. Along with Lercara Friddi, Linguaglossa is one of the towns in Sicily to which my family may claim ancestral lineage. Literally translated, Linguaglossa means "tongue tongue," with lingua as the modern Italian word for tongue, or language, and glossa as the ancient Sicilian word of the same meaning. As such, this town represents the meeting point of the old and the new, the past and the future. Throughout the text, there are several references to this mythical sense of time. For example, it is implied that Lercara Friddi was founded in the year 0, or perhaps 1 AD. A similar mythic ethos surrounds other aspects of my father's experience, most notably space, character, and image. By orchestrating my own recorded narration of this story, I sought to create a musical halo enveloping speech, adding a third generation to my family's continuing journey of artistic self-exploration and reflection through the media of film, literature, and music.