Organized by Assomusica and KeepOn Live. With Cesare Liaci (CoolClub), Michele Riondino (Cinzella), Carlo Parodi (Assomusica), and Barbara Visentin (Corriere della Sera). Moderated by Davide Fabbri.
The recent national mapping of live music venues launched by KeepOn Live, Assomusica, and ARCI represents a crucial step in providing a quantitative snapshot of the diffusion, distribution, and consistency of the venues that currently comprise the geography of live music in Italy. But every map, by its very nature, provides coordinates, not content; it measures presences, not always meanings.
Starting from this wealth of data, the panel intends to shift attention to a further, crucial question: what really circulates within these spaces? What music is currently played by artists, promoted by promoters, selected by booking agents, and purchased—if we can still say so—by the artistic directors of Italian festivals, clubs, and venues? And above all: through what logics does this music move, assert itself, be supported, or excluded?
The meeting therefore aims to interrogate the qualitative side of the map, investigating not only the genres, languages, and trends that characterize the current national live music scene, but also the economic, cultural, and sociological conditions that shape its circulation. What relationship exists today between artistic choice and sustainability? How much room is left for curatorial risk? How are audiences, consumption models, and new mechanisms of attention redefining what is programmed? Reading what the data doesn’t reveal thus means trying to understand what the music that flows through our spaces today tells us about those who produce it and those who listen to it: what expressive needs does it intercept, what forms of community does it build, what imaginaries does it confirm or challenge.
The final question, inevitably, concerns the very nature of venues: what characteristics must a live music venue have today to be culturally significant, attractive, and impactful in its local area? And, in light of the transformations that have emerged, what tools, skills, and conditions are necessary to qualitatively keep pace with a constantly evolving scene?
