The choir
Checcoro is the first LGBT choir in Milan, born in 2010 to offer the city of Milan Christmas songs sung a cappella in the square according to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. During the performances, the text is distributed to those who stop to listen with an invitation to sing and with the aim of involving in an enlarged and varied community experience. The intention is to raise awareness on LGBT issues by creating a comparison and agreement through the universal language of music, sharing mutual respect and promoting collective growth.
Curriculum vitae of the choir
Since October 2013, the choir experience has spread throughout the year, participating in the events of the Milanese LGBT community (among others Pride Week and Rainbow Christmas Markets) with flash mobs and concerts aimed at the whole city and adhering to festivals and initiatives in Italy and beyond, performing since then in more than one hundred events. The number of participants in the choir has progressively grown over the years up to the current 70 elements, led by maestro Filiberto Bentivoglio who follows the direction and musical curatorship. Checcoro’s repertoire, in addition to the Christmas carols of the nineteenth century Anglo-Saxon (for example Hark! The Herald Angel Sing by Felix Mendelssohn), includes pop songs such as Born This Way by Lady Gaga, Super Trouper by Abba, Nobody can judge me by Caterina Caselli and the Minamania medley, traditional Italian lyrics, such as Mameli’s Hymn and Beethoven’s Hymn to Joy, sung on the most official occasions, and “protest” songs like Bella Ciao and Bread and Roses. From 2017 Checcoro was formed in APS (Association of Social Promotion) with the aim of strengthening its action also through contact and discussion with citizens and local and national institutions.
The director
Filiberto Bentivoglio says of himself: “I began my musical” career “in church, when I accompanied the singers to the organ during mass: from there my true passion for choral singing and voices started. a two-voice choir made up of boys linked to the oratory, nothing particularly demanding. When I moved to Milan, the first thing I did was look for a choir in which to sing and so I entered the Musical Chapel of the Basilica of San Marco, at the period directed by Maestro Giovanni Vianini; from there it was a succession of different experiences in various choral ensembles in Milan: the Nuova Polifonica Ambrosiana, the Syntagma Musical Complex and other occasional collaborations with other groups. Brigata Alpina Tridentina, of which I later became director. After my leave I joined the Ars Cantica vocal ensemble, a choir of exceptional level, if compared to the other kings altà di Milano, choir with which I still collaborate as a singer. My “musical career” then landed, almost ten years ago, in Checcoro, of which I am the director and co-founder. “
