ITALY-NEW ENGLAND: DO YOU KNOW THAT? June 10 2011
Press Review for the Consulate General of Italy in Boston by Alessandra Granelli
Guitar to be Celebrated in Five-Day Festival by Rebecca Marchand - The Boston Musical Intelligencer The month of June is host to multiple wonderful music festivals here in Boston. Recently, world-renowned guitarist Eliot Fisk discussed his brainchild and increasingly successful Boston Guitarfest, now in its sixth year, which runs from June 15-19. This year’s theme is “Bell’ Italia,” largely in celebration of master guitarist Oscar Ghiglia, with whom Fisk studied and who will be performing and giving several master classes. The festival’s concert programming is eclectic and engaging yet very much connected to the overall “Italian” theme. (The Guitarfest website has biographies of all of the performers named in this article) Fisk’s vision for the festival — and for music in general — is one of cross-disciplinary dialogue. He views the guitar as a symbol of the interconnectedness of musical traditions. “It relates to everything!” he notes enthusiastically. “It is the most prominent folk instrument in the world, yet it has the oldest published tradition,… an ability to traverse the centuries. Almost every culture on earth has some sort of plucked instrument.” He also highlighted the cross-cultural coexistence of Islamic and Spanish elements in music, architecture, etc., and how they all manifest in the guitar as an instrument, as well as repertoire such as the danza mora, in which flamenco and Arabic influences intersect. Fisk also strongly desires more local and “lateral” participation between organizations. He notes that the Guitarfest attracts many international participants but would like to see more active participation from local guitarists and their supporting institutions. While he regrets the isolationism of some arts organizations in Boston, he recognized the support he has received from several donors and local academic institutions, namely New England Conservatory and Northeastern University. Most of the performers are, like Fisk, former students and disciples of Ghiglia. Concerts will feature a fascinating array of styles and repertoire, and not just for guitar. The first concert on Wednesday, June 15, features the 2010 Guitarfest Competition Winner Artyom Dervoed in the first half, and the second half will be devoted to Italian/Italianate Baroque harpsichord music (including Bach’s Italian Concerto) played by John Gibbons. Gibbons, who is on the faculty at NEC and directs the Bach Ensemble, will also be giving a seminar on Baroque performance practice the following day. In addition
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to Gibbons’s seminar, Dr. Hilary Poriss of Northeastern University will be delivering a lecture on Saturday on the direct relationship of Italian opera to guitar repertoire. The festival also includes a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts instrument collection and a visit to the North End to absorb Italian culture à la Boston. On Thursday, June 16, the Newman-Oltman Duo (both former students of Ghiglia who run their own New York guitar festival in July) will perform works by Rossini, Leo Brouwer, and a world premiere of a work by Brazilian composer Arthur Kampela. On the same program, Fisk and electric guitar player Jude Gold will premiere a work written for this year’s festival by composer Anthony De Ritis, who, Fisk noted, has been a “wise, guiding force” for the festival since 2000. Two concerts will be featured on Friday, June 17. At 4 pm, guitarist and Northeastern faculty member Robert Ward will play Liszt’s transcriptions of the Paganini Caprices (in turn transcribed for guitar by Fisk) as well as works by lesserknown modern composers Salvatore Sciarrino (b. 1947) and Franco Donatoni (1927-2000). At 7:30 pm, Scott Borg and the Boston Guitar Orchestra will present a brief performance, immediately followed by the 8 pm concert. Borg, a native Australian who received his DMA from NEC, founded the BGO, a community-based amateur ensemble. In our interview, Fisk underscored the importance of aficionados and amateur music makers as a large and fundamental part of the audience for guitar music and feels “participatory audiences” are crucial to the survival of music performance. The 8 pm concert begins with guitarist/lutenist Richard Savino and Ensemble El Mundo, which he co-directs, in a concert of Baroque music. The second half of the concert will feature guitarist Adam Holzman playing later Italian repertoire from the 19th century, including works by composers Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829), Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841) and Luigi Legnani (1790-1877). Saturday night’s concert on June 18 presents Eliot Fisk, Zaira Meneses, members from A Far Cry string orchestra, and Ghiglia in a wide-ranging and exciting program from Vivaldi’s Double Concerto (originally for two mandolins and strings), to Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XI for solo guitar, a
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work written for and dedicated to Fisk. Fisk hopes that the festival will generate a real “open-door feeling” here in Boston. He also wants to foster opportunities for young American musicians: “In a very materialistic society, if they don’t happen to hit a jackpot early in their career, they face a tough and important battle. … Rather than curse the darkness, I want to light a candle of widening concentric circles, starting with my own group of students struggling to make a living. … I’ve been mentoring them for 35 years. …The Guitarfest is a chance for [them] to learn the business side … there aren’t many jobs students have to graduate into entrepreneurship. I want to light a candle for my students in that way. “Boston is a city with so much unrealized potential. I’m trying to do my bit …. what would be a real victory is to get many different people to collaborate for the common good.” Fisk’s inspired vision is indeed one that should be shared by arts producers, administrators and consumers. Boston has no dearth of performing arts organizations, but the competitive model is hitting a brick wall, especially in these economic times. Collaboration is becoming increasingly more common, and when done well, can be mutually beneficial artistically and financially. Boston’s artistic riches are too bountiful to promote isolationism; one hopes for more events like Guitarfest that welcome a diverse audience and leap out of imposed cultural boxes. The festival is designed to accommodate those who may only wish to participate in one day’s events or have other restrictions, financial or otherwise; for a full schedule and to purchase tickets, please see the Boston Guitarfest.
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June 10 2011
Searching in the guitar for all the colors of the orchestra by Jeremy Eichler - The Boston Globe The Boston-based musician Eliot Fisk has built a prominent career “swimming upstream’’ as a classical guitar soloist. He spoke with the Globe in advance of this year’s Boston GuitarFest (June 15-19), which he founded six years ago. Q. What should we know about this year’s GuitarFest? A. The theme is “Bell’ Italia,’’ and the main guest is a former teacher of all the performers — Oscar Ghiglia, who has been a wonderful guru and mentor to generations of guitarists, including myself. We’ll have four days of master classes and performances. It’s an exhilarating thing that always charges all of us up. Q. What was the original vision for the festival, your reason for founding it? A. The aim was definitely not to do just one more guitar festival. I wanted to do something artistically in the realm of a Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art’’). I’ve always been most excited about music when I’ve been part of a bigger community. . . . I’m interested in it as a galvanizing, humanizing force in society, bringing people together. And in our own little way, that’s the bigger picture of what we’re doing at the festival. The aim is, first and foremost, aesthetic and artistic excellence, but it’s also a chance for my students to learn onthe-job entrepreneurial skills. Each year I pick a theme and we try to involve many Boston institutions. This year New England Conservatory and Northeastern University are involved [among others]. Q. How do you view the modern plight of the classical guitar more generally? A. For me the plight of the classical guitar is the opportunity of the classical guitar. The guitar is the most popular instrument in the world. People are not intimidated by it. It has a friendly persona. It’s one of the oldest instruments. We have this heritage from the time of the Renaissance. We also have a wild folk part of our heritage, and these streams grew up simultaneously. In my day, when I was in school, the string players were groomed for orchestral jobs or to be a soloist. But now no one has a job! I think that many classical guitar players have been used to being entrepreneurial all their lives, so they are now better poised than many musicians to take on the challenges of art music in the 21st century. Q. Growing up in Pennsylvania, what was your own route to classical guitar? A. My parents were Quakers, and I was raised in the Philadelphia area. We had Roger Scott, the principal double bass player of the Philadelphia Orchestra, in our Meeting. He said, “If Eliot is going to study guitar, he should study classicalguitar.’’ But there was almost nobody to study with. For only two years of my life, I had good weekly lessons from an amateur at a guitar store on Saturdays. He was so tough on me that in order to prove him wrong, I started to practice.
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There was no support really from anywhere, but I was bitten by the bug, and I had this sound in my ear that I wanted to create. Q. You eventually studied with the legendary guitarist Andrés Segovia. Do you think contemporary players have had a difficult time escaping his shadow? A. I think he’s still a great model — his repertoire spanned five centuries. He played the old stuff, the Renaissance music, and played wonderfully musical Bach. He also got an unbelievable amount of stuff written by very good composers, and he performed it with tremendous devotion and tremendous artistry. Segovia had the courage to take unamplified classical guitar into halls that seated 2,500 people — that was so gutsy, and his charisma was so fantastic that people listened to him. Q. I’m sure you meet people all the time, even classical music fans, who have had almost no contact with classical guitar performance. How do you introduce them to what you do? A. Segovia had a beautiful way of putting it. He said the guitar is like an orchestra seen through the wrong end of the telescope — a miniature orchestra, with all the colors possible. He also said that, of all God’s creatures, two have assumed all sizes and shapes to accompany man: the dog and the guitar. I’m actually trying to break out of mini-orchestra metaphor — I want to be an orchestra! I think what’s amazing is the variety of expression in the repertoire, from the very accessible end to far-out modern stuff. One of the interesting things about art is that it should be in some way experimental, and if we’re under this impression that everything has to be a masterpiece always, then maybe we’re not taking enough risks. We try at these festivals to have a tremendous variety so everyone can both feel comfortable and also be exhilarated by some new experiences that they haven’t had before.
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Stati Uniti: PIB, i Professionisti Italiani di Boston Talento e simpatia tricolore sul Charles River. Oltre 400 soci uniti da un grande entusiasmo, i “PIB” sono diventati il punto di riferimento della comunità italiana nel New England per condividere amicizie e contatti professionali BOSTON - Aggregare professionisti italiani dell’area di Boston, facilitare collaborazioni tra iscritti, favorire i contatti tra professionisti in Italia e colleghi italiani e stranieri di Boston, organizzare eventi culturali interessanti per la comunità italiana, ma aperti anche alla partecipazione internazionale; insomma, promuovere l’italianità a Boston. Sono chiari e pragmatici gli obiettivi delineati dallo statuto di PIB: il gruppo di Professionisti Italiani a Boston che, nel giro di soli due anni, è diventato il punto di riferimento per i giovani connazionali che scelgono le sponde del Charles River come punto di partenza per il loro curriculum negli States, e non solo. Professionisti, imprenditori, ricercatori, artisti italiani che vivono nell’area di Boston: sono queste le figure che danno corpo al sodalizio apolitico nato in quest’angolo nordorientale degli Stati Uniti, culla dell’indipendenza americana. Ma, soprattutto, sono giovani. Giovanni Abbadessa, Cynthia Carrillo Infante, Marcella Debidda, Federica Del Monte, Elisa Dell’Oglio, Melissa Gallin, Nadia Di Carlo, Marco Ferrara, Francesco Fragasso, Eugenia Garrisi, Salvatore Mascia, Tiziana Musacchio, Valentina Oppezzo, Nicola Orichuia, Alberto Pepe, Marco Perucchi, Bastiano Sanna, Sandro Santoro, Alessandro Vianello, Davide Zaccagnini: sono questi i nomi del direttivo di un’associazione che vanta membri provenienti dal mondo accademico e industriale, e che rappresenta un vero modello per le comunità di italiani in altre città statunitensi che si stanno ispirando al programma sviluppato dal PIB. Una rete per vivere bene «Nei primi anni – spiega Michele Abbadessa, co-fondatore e coordinatore del sodalizio – vivevo a Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, dove ho conosciuto tanti italiani. Le associazioni cui mi avvicinavo, aggregavano soprattutto gli italo-americani che magari non parlano la lingua italiana; oppure italiani arrivati negli Stati Uniti diversi decenni fa. Anche a Boston era la stessa cosa. Così, insieme ad alcuni amici, ho deciso di fondare un’associazione riservata a professionisti che vivono nell’area di Boston e che parlano la lingua italiana. I “Professionisti Italiani a Boston” (www.piboston.org) sono più di 400, oltre a un paio di centinaia di affiliati internazionali. Siamo inseriti nel tessuto sociale e professionale della città, nonostante la maggior parte di noi sia qui da meno di vent’anni. Questo perché si tratta di professionisti, in genere specializzati in Italia, trasferitisi qui per occupare posizioni lavorative di rilievo oppure per specializzarsi in una delle prestigiose università bostoniane, e che poi sono rimasti qui per lavoro. La difficoltà di ottenere visti per lavoro, unita alla competitività del nordest americano, è un elemento di selezione naturale del livello professionale degli italiani che
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rimangono a Boston. Al mio arrivo in città, nel 2007, non si sapeva esattamente quanti italiani lavorassero qui. Oggi i nuovi arrivati possono contare su una community attiva che organizza eventi sociali e professionali utili sia per sentirsi a casa che per crescere sul piano lavorativo. E che si sforza di fare da ponte con l’Italia». Abbadessa – senior medical director di ArQule – dopo aver lavorato alcuni anni in un dipartimento di oncologia a Milano, ha proposto a un laboratorio americano un progetto che poi è stato approvato e finanziato. Infine si è trasferito negli Stati Uniti con l’idea di non restarci più di un anno. «Il primo impatto è stato molto positivo – ammette –. Tutto sembrava funzionare molto bene dal punto di vista lavorativo. Ma dopo il primo anno, ho cominciato a vedere anche gli aspetti negativi, soprattutto quelli riguardanti la sanità e l’educazione, decisamente più complesse rispetto all’Italia. Ma anche logiche di crescita professionale che non sempre sono perfette. Dopo essere stati lontani dal proprio Paese per un po’ di tempo, si tende poi a idealizzarne alcuni aspetti, perché magari si viene influenzati da sentimenti nostalgici». Impegnato a sostenere le attività di collaborazione con il Consolato d’Italia e con altri gruppi di giovani italiani negli Stati Uniti, il PIB organizza incontri con le eccellenze italiane che si fermano a Boston. «In casa – precisa Michele – si parla e si mangia italiano. Nostro figlio sta imparando a parlare italiano, inglese, spagnolo, e ha numerosi coetanei italiani con cui giocare, oltre a quelli americani. Nell’ambito di PIB, sono già nate varie attività volte a far incontrare i più piccoli in modo che anche i figli dei membri possano beneficiare del gruppo. Stiamo favorendo anche la nascita di gruppi gemelli di PIB a New York, Montréal, Madrid, Philadelphia. E speriamo anche in altre grandi città all’estero». Un «concentrato» di talenti «Avevo sentito parlare di PIB prima di arrivare a Boston – ricorda il console d’Italia Giuseppe Pastorelli, insediatosi a fine 2010 – e ho scoperto che rappresenta la realtà altamente qualificata della recente presenza italiana. Questa è una specificità di Boston. Non si trova questa concentrazione di talenti in altre città». La specialità di Valentina Oppezzo è la fotografia. Nata a Casal Monferrato ventinove anni fa, e trasferitasi a 19 anni a Trieste per gli studi universitari, dopo la laurea al DAMS, Valentina ha scelto il mondo dell’immagine per la sua professione. Dopo un periodo passato a vendere polizze assicurative, decise di approfondire la sua passione per la fotografia e divenne assistente di importanti fotografi. «La molla che mi ha spinto a partire per gli States è arrivata da Francesco, che oggi è mio marito. All’epoca era studente, dottorando di fisica, alla Sissa, la Scuola Internazionale
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Superiore di Studi Avanzati di Trieste. Gli fu offerto un contratto come “post doc” presso il laboratorio di biochimica della Brandeis University di Waltham, appena fuori Boston. Così decidemmo di partire e di provare l’“esperienza americana”. Per le nostre famiglie non fu facile accettare l’idea della nostra partenza. Personalmente non ho avuto nessun problema a lasciare l’Italia ma sicuramente, i primi tempi a Boston non sono stati facili. All’interno di una grande realtà come questa, è difficile conoscere persone e instaurare legami, soprattutto all’inizio. E poi a Boston d’inverno fa freddissimo! Mio marito e io abbiamo vissuto l’esperienza americana fino in fondo, cercando di conoscere per lo più persone locali o con le quali, almeno, si parlasse la lingua inglese. Ma poi, pian piano, siamo stati risucchiati nel meccanismo dei rapporti e delle amicizie tra connazionali, perché tra italiani all’estero si crea un legame e un “cameratismo” che tra gli italiani in Italia difficilmente esiste. Attualmente abbiamo molti amici italiani, anche se non frequentiamo esclusivamente italiani. Il PIB, a cui siamo iscritti da circa un anno, rappresenta un’ottima occasione per instaurare rapporti sociali e professionali». Il coraggio di rischiare Nel 2010, grazie a un nuovo visto, Valentina ha deciso di aprire il suo studio fotografico, nel quale realizza ritratti, fotografie di prodotti, e portfolio di modelli e modelle. Autrice del volume Harry Potter al Cinema, edito in Italia da Le Mani Editore, la giovane professionista insegna anche italiano agli adulti presso scuole serali e associazioni. «Francamente – conclude Valentina – se fossi rimasta in Italia, la fotografia si sarebbe probabilmente ridotta a un hobby. Qui, invece, mi sono sentita più motivata, circondata da esempi positivi e da tanta determinazione. Gli americani investono molto, fanno debiti e a volte perdono tutto. Gli italiani hanno sempre un gruzzoletto in banca, ma, onestamente, ci provano meno. Manteniamo ancora molti contatti con l’Italia, con gli amici e le nostre famiglie. L’esperienza americana, al di là di quanto durerà, è destinata a finire perché abbiamo deciso fin da subito che, a un certo punto, saremmo tornati a casa. Gli States sono tutto fuorché un Paese che garantisce assistenza. E anche il solo fatto di mandare i propri figli all’asilo costa cifre strepitose e impensabili». (Generoso D'Agnese - Messaggero di sant’Antonio, edizione per l’estero)
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June 10 2011
INAUGURATO IL LABORATORIO DI PROGETTAZIONE AUTOMOTIVE AVANZATA A Torino i vertici delle maggiori aziende hardware e software nel campo della progettazione nel settore automotive per il taglio del nastro del laboratorio PACE, rete che unisce General Motors, Autodesk, HP, Siemens e Sun Oracle nella formazione ingegneristica orientata all’autoveicolo. Più di 3000 studenti di diversi corsi di laurea potranno utilizzare questi strumenti, acquisendo una competenza direttamente spendibile sul mercato del lavoro. Torino, Italia. Garantire ai futuri ingegneri una formazione immediatamente spendibile sul mercato del lavoro, grazie alla possibilità di utilizzare negli anni di studio gli stessi strumenti di progettazione e macchine simili a quelli con cui lavoreranno in azienda. È questo l’obiettivo del programma PACE - "Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education”, di cui fa parte anche il Politecnico di Torino, prima ed unica università italiana selezionata lo scorso anno per entrare a far parte di questo prestigioso network di atenei internazionali. È stato inaugurato oggi, al termine di un incontro di presentazione con i vertici delle aziende aderenti a PACE (General Motors, Autodesk, HP, Siemens e Sun Oracle), il laboratorio che mette a disposizione degli studenti i più avanzati programmi di progettazione nel settore automotive offerti dalle aziende. Il grande valore aggiunto è che gli studenti potranno utilizzare in questo laboratorio le versioni industriali degli strumenti per lo sviluppo del prodotto (CAD, CAE), non quelle universitarie che presentano funzionalità differenti e ridotte, arrivando quindi sul mercato del lavoro con una competenza già totalmente acquisita. In tutto, il Politecnico potrà contare sull’installazione dei software su computer e workstation di nuova generazione più una serie di facilitazioni messe a disposizione dai partners del progetto. Il Politecnico si unisce così ad altre 52 università, di cui solo 4 europee, rientrando nel ristretto gruppo di Atenei internazionali partner dell'iniziativa. Tra le università coinvolte, ci sono il Massachusetts Institute of Technology negli Stati Uniti (MIT), il National Institute of Design (NID) in India e il Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germania (TUD). La scorsa primavera, fu annunciata l’accettazione della candidatura del Politecnico a far parte del programma, su presentazione di GM Powertrain Europe, azienda promotrice della rete PACE e ospitata negli spazi della Cittadella dell’Ateneo torinese. Il Politecnico è stato scelto per la qualità della ricerca e della didattica, ma anche per il suo ruolo di Research University, dove formazione e ricerca si integrano e fanno sistema per fornire una risposta concreta alle esigenze dell'economia e del territorio. Oggi il progetto entra nella fase operativa con la messa a disposizione di tutti gli studenti, ricercatori e docenti dell’Ateneo degli strumenti offerti da PACE, non solo nel laboratorio inaugurato ufficialmente, ma in tutte le macchine dei laboratori degli studenti del Politecnico e in molti computer di docenti e ricercatori che ne hanno fatto
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richiesta. Saranno circa 3000 gli studenti di diversi corsi di laurea interessati a utilizzare questi strumenti. In allegato il comunicato stampa. (PiemontePress)
June 10 2011
Fluent in Italian cooking by Steve Miller - The Boston Globe Q. Was there a specific turning point in the history of Italian food that transformed it from common fare to popular cuisine? A. I would say that by the mid-’80s there were two things going for it that really set things off. One was the availability of real Italian ingredients outside Italy. People in the past said, “Sure, it’s good food, but it’s not all that great.’’ But when you had the ingredients coming in, it made people sit up and take notice. Two was the Italian fashion that ran riot in the mid-’80s over French and American styles. That, coupled with glamorous ad campaigns in Italy, was a clincher that made this common cuisine seem upscale. The real knock-out punch, though, was the concept of the Mediterranean diet. Q. You mention that Italian food first garnered a reputation as heavy and carb-laden. Is that unique to Italian-American food? A. In a way. In fact, what you say is ironic, because Italians themselves never talk about food as being healthy. They’ve just been going their merry way eating healthy without knowing it. Q. Was there any level of Americanization at play in Italian food’s success? A. I have to say both proudly and surprisingly that if you and I were in Shanghai, the food would bear much more resemblance to Italian-American food than to Italy’s regional distinctions. For example, Bolognese [sauce] was popularized by American restaurants, and spaghetti and meatballs became totemic in America. If you went back to the old country, it would be very rare to have. It would be a real Sunday big-deal dinner. Q. That being said, is Italian food in America becoming more or less authentic? A. It’s authentic insofar as it’s Italian-American food. The distinction is that they too are using really good ingredients. The best Italian restaurants in any American city are now far more authentic. The authenticity issue is extremely important in having a better cuisine. Q. Where does wine play into all of this? A. The French and some Californians would happily tell you that you can’t have a good cuisine without great wine. In fact, Italians did not take their wine seriously for, oh, 2,000 years. Nobody knew what was growing in the fields there at all. No one had ever cataloged it. In the mid-1970s, that started to change. And then the wine press began to notice that there was great stuff coming out of Italy. Q. Can we settle the who-invented-pasta debate? A. There is no definitive answer. Like winemaking, pasta evolved in different areas around the Mediterranean as well as in East Asia. The Romans made a form of pasta that
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evolved into lasagna and the African Moors had a form of noodles they made in Sicilian factories from Sicilian wheat. Marco Polo wrote that the Chinese had noodles of a kind Italians had eaten for centuries. Q. In the distant past, food varied greatly from region to region in Italy. Is that as true now? A. It always overlapped, meaning if you took all the regions of the south, it would not radically differ. But in the north, if you happened to be on the Austrian border, you’re going to be very affected by that. Or if you’re in Venice, you’re going to be very affected by the fact that you’re on an island — more seafood, etc. Then, if you’re up in Liguria, the kind of food they eat up there is much less based on tomato. Q. Italian food is obviously everywhere in America, but how has it fared around the rest of the world? A. Italian restaurants are enormously popular everywhere. Places like Buenos Aires and Brazil have always had a big Italian population. I have a quote in the book from writer Rashmi Uday in the Times of India that essentially asks, “When was the last time anything but an Italian restaurant opened in Mumbai?’’ WHO John Mariani WHAT He’s Esquire’s food and travel correspondent, a three-time nominee for the James Beard Journalism Award, and knows his way around a plate of pasta. This Italian food enthusiast wrote “How Italian Food Conquered the World,’’ in which he tells the engaging and unexpected story of this scrappy cuisine-that-could, following its rise from the peasant table to everywhere-you-go grub. WHERE Mariani will be at Bina Osteria on Monday, when chef Will Foden will prepare a four-course prix fixe menu ($40) that dovetails with the rustic roots and modern flair of Italian cuisine explored by Mariani. Bina Osteria is at 581 Washington St., Boston., 617-956-0888.