Cartolina 9 & 23 September 2015

9 September: Festival Italiano in Auckland has become a great yearly appointment for lovers of anything Italian, spilling from a school playground onto roads around, and including events and concerts. Festival Director Alessandra Zecchini tells how the Festival was started, and what will be this year’s highlights.

23 September Milan World Fair : Recently returned from his Italian holiday, Cartolina co-producer Denis Walker talks about visiting the Milan World Fair, and some connected events throughout Italy. With the theme “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, it certainly has inspired this foodie’s thoughts

Cartolina 12 & 26 August 2015

12 August: Pellegrino Artusi, accountant by trade, creator of the “Italian” cuisine. Denis and Wilma talk about the genesis of his seminal book L’arte in cucina e la scienza del mangiar bene (The art in the kitchen and the science of eating well), that for the first time collected regional recipes from all over Italy, meant not for restaurants, but for the Italian households. Interestingly, the book contains in a few chapters everything that now fills bookshops’ shelves in terms of health, hygiene and happiness!

26 August: Karen Price and Karen Stade have co-authored the book Pasta, Prayer & Promise – The story of Nelson’s Italian community, 1860-2014. At 450 pages, with an incredible wealth of documents (some de-classified for the occasion), this is the ultimate compilation of the stories of those families, contributing so much to the New Zealand history, and to the alternate fortunes of the relationship between the two Countries. It’s also a visual feast, presenting photos from sepia to full colour. We talk with the authors, on the day of the Christchurch book launch, organized by the Dante Society.

Cartolina 1, 15 & 29 July 2015

1 July: Beniamino Petrosino talks about his book “The passage of the frog and the wild strawberries of 1942”, and about a project dear to him: the Aninz, Associazione Nonni Italiani in NZ. We play Il vecchio e il bambino, by Francesco Guccini. Beniamino can be contacted through the FB page Italiani a Christchurch.

15 July: Francesco Pasqualetti is the Italian conductor directing the coming season of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Isaac Theatre Royal from the 23rd of July. This is the second time Pasqualetti directs opera in New Zeland. We talk with him about the present production.

29 July: Mulino Bianco is one of the most loved brands in Italy, maker of fine biscuits of all kinds. It’s also a story of clever marketing, in which reality had to adapt to fantasy!

Cartolina 3 & 17 June 2015

Christian Leotta

3 June: an interview with pianist Christian Leotta, on the eve of his recital in Christchurch, a free event organized by the Italian Ambassador to celebrate Italy’s Republic Day, with the support of Societa` Dante Alighieri of Christchurch. Maestro Leotta is a native of Catania, and now lives in Como. He’s hailed as one of the major Beethoven soloists of our time, and has recorded the entire corpus of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas.

17 June: Nutella! You can find it in every corner of the world. But do you know it’s an Italian invention? Possibly the most successful product of the Ferrero brand. We tell the story of the popular spread, and play some songs that you can’t miss, like “La Nutella di tua sorella” We also discuss how to make the perfect

Crostata di Nutellla

Cartolina 6 & 20 May 2015

Radio Cartolina 6 and 20 May

Radio Cartolina 6 and 20 May: two programmes on Pino Daniele, the Italian singer-song writer who died recently. Daniele Ronci ed Erica Bellettini discuss (in Italian) his unique style of Neapolitan rock, and introduce his best songs.

Cartonlina 8 & 22 April 2015

8 April: Simon Ogden and Enrica 
Sciarrino discuss Sicily, the inspiration
 of Ogden’s photographic travels. His
 photos are vignettes that defy the 
images of Sicily that one can find in
 postcards, travel guides and magazines, by erasing the
 picturesque and the monumental in order to make room for alternative forms of encounter, and capturing unmistakably Sicilian colours and textures (from E.S.’s introduction). His exhibition, “love, lust & life -hands, hearts & minds, opened in Wellington in February under the auspices of the Italian Embassy, and is coming to Christchurch at Papergraphica, 192 Bealey Av, on the 13^th of April. 

                     22 April: Cartolina producers Wilma Laryn and Denis Walker talk about their favourite songs.