********** WELCOME TO **********

******** FESTA ITALIANA!!! *********


I look forward to this Italian Festival every year; it's become the highlight of our musical summer. There are 10 stages of music (and lots of other activities and displays too) all going on continuously through the day and evening, for 4 days. This year it was July 19 - 22. We attended both Saturday and Sunday, and first off, we saw GIADA VALENTI, a talented singer who sings in a similar voice and style of the late Edith Pilaf. Giada also sang a French song that was famous by that great singer, and the audience loved it! Our friends from New Jersey drove all the way (19 hours) to meet us here, and this was the first singer they wanted to see, as they had seen her concerts out East. They travel all over to see their favorite singers ( especially Michael Amante, whom they have seen in concert over 80 times!!) Lucky them! But I was still surprised they would drive this far to Milwaukee to see our Festa. They did so because they had heard how wonderful it was, and said they were not disappointed!
Anyway, Giada Valenti has a very warm and rich voice, with a marvelous vibrato, and is strictly a pop singer. I don't recall her singing any operatic arias.

We saw many singers, including about half of a concert by JULIUS LA ROSA (because my friend SAM had asked me to check him out!) and I was amazed at how good his voice was still after all these years! It was strong and clear (with no wobble at all) with a nice vibrato too. I'm glad we saw him, but I can't remember much of what he sang, since I'm writing this a month later. I do know that Settimio also agreed that he was a very good singer, especially impressive for his age. I'm often disappointed with singers when they get that far up in years, but no matter what, we always give them credit for having such a love and passion for singing and sharing it with their audience through so many years .

All the pictures we took are here. What I'm really sorry about is that we didn't take any photos of some other impressive things, (Just too much rushing around!) like the GORGEOUS STAINLESS STEEL STATUE OF THE MADONNA, STANDING 33 FEET HIGH!! Or the also tall Statue of David, who depending on which year you come, is sometimes naked and sometimes wearing shorts patterned after the American Flag. Festa Italiana also had a really cool Italian village set up some years (but not this year) which I could post if our scanner was working! I bought a new printer/scanner/copier in March to be able for the first time to upload old photos, but it got corrupted recently, and I haven't been able to even install the whole printer again! Anyway, I hope you all enjoy what photos there are, (CLICK ON THE PHOTOS IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE DETAIL - MAKES EVERYTHING ALMOST LIFE-SIZE!) and try to make it to this great Festival some year soon yourselves!!
P.S. - I FORGOT TO PUT THE REST OF MY FESTA ITALIANA COMMENTS IN *BOLD* PRINT, WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE THEM EASIER TO READ, SO LATER ON, I'LL GO BACK AND DO THAT - (AS I HAVE ELSEWHERE ON THIS BLOG) - EVERY TIME I COME BACK TO IT, I ALWAYS SEE LOTS OF THINGS THAT NEED IMPROVEMENT, AND I'M STILL LEARNING!!