A concert in tribute to Vittorio Longarato in Gambellara

Locandina del concerto di Gambellara dedicato a Vittorio Longarato

On Saturday, May 24, 2025 , at 7:00 PM, the Parish Church of Gambellara (Vicenza) will host the "Concert for Vittorio," dedicated to Vittorio Longarato , a prisoner of war at the South African Zonderwater Camp. The event, sponsored by the Municipality of Gambellara and the Zonderwater Block ex-POW Association, is promoted by the Institute of Musical Literature of the Concentration Camp (ILMC) Foundation of Barletta.

The concert, which features music written by composers who experienced war imprisonment, will feature an all-Apulian cast: Beatrice Mappa (flute), Dominga Damato (oboe), Domenico Cetera (Bb clarinet), Michele Lozupone (Bb trumpet), Fabrizio Signorile (violin I), Alessandro Fiore (violin II), Francesco Capuano (viola), Marco Mareschi (cello), Giulio Mareschi (piano), Francesco Lotoro (piano), Nico Sette (tenor), Angelo De Leonardis (baritone), and Paolo Candido (conductor and conductor).

Vittorio Longarato , a valiant rifleman awarded the War Cross of Merit, was one of those Italians who during the Second World War spent the best years of their youth serving their country, contributing to the construction of today's Italy. Paying homage to him is—as the mayor of Gambellara, Michele Poli, states—"a way to 're-member,' that is, to recall his life with profound respect and pass it on to all of us and to future generations so that we can continue to build a world of peace and serenity."

Captured by the Allies in Africa during the war, Longarato was interned for six years, like 100,000 other Italians, in the vast British prison camp at Zonderwater (South Africa); a period he did not like to talk about because it was marked by suffering and separation from his loved ones and his homeland, or which he at best only recalled in meetings with former fellow prisoners, as his children tell us today.

Vittorio Longarato's connection with music passes through a banjo-mandolin, an original instrument that he played in the Campo and that he had created with his own hands using makeshift materials and tools.

The Longarato story is among those that have most attracted the attention of Apulian musician Francesco Lotoro, president of the Fondazione Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria (Institute of Concentrationary Musical Literature Foundation), who for 37 years has been involved in researching and recovering music written in concentration and extermination camps and other sites of civilian and military captivity around the world during the Second World War.

The Municipality of Gambellara, Elisa Longarato (Vittorio's daughter), her husband Gianni Albiero, and the ILMC Foundation have meticulously prepared the Concert for Vittorio to bring from the Apulian city of Barletta (the world capital of concentration camp music literature) to Gambellara (Vittorio Longarato's birthplace) a tribute to a man who, in addition to his undeniable military merits, found in music a precious lifeline to withstand the physical and psychological suffering of captivity.

"Music ," Lotoro declares, " restores the architecture of the soul, serves as an individual and collective strategy of resistance through Beauty, and produces mental and spiritual nourishment no less indispensable than physical nourishment. We will be able to make ourselves fully worthy of the memory of Vittorio Longarato."