Madonnari Arts Festival/125th Columbus Day Celebration
This event occurred in the past.
Little Italy | Website
Map
Little Italy proudly presents the Little Italy Baltimore Madonnari Arts Festival in celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Columbus Day Parade. This 4-day cultural event will showcase elaborate chalk paintings created by artists directly on the streets of Little Italy. S. High Street will come alive as it is transformed into fine works of art. The theme of the art is “The World is Round: Renaissance in Little Italy.” The event will be enhanced with Italian food, wine, music, theater and dance in a celebration of the contemporary renaissance of Baltimore's historic Italian neighborhood. The artists' chalk ddrawing will be featured during three of the four event days. Professional and student artists will become i madonnari for the celebration. Little Italy proudly hosts three Madonnari from Italy, Flavio Coppola, Francesca Arsi and Matteo Appignani and Baltimore’s own Maestro Madonnaro, Michael Kirby. Anthony Cappetto, known for combining 4d technology with 2d and 3d art, will also be featured among the exciting roster of participating visual artists. The street art will be judged by a selection of local media and entertainment celebrities and professional artists. Local, national and international performing artists will participate in a series of indoor and outdoor events sponsored by the Little Italy restaurants. On the weekend afternoons, Laura Norris, founder and instructor of Mando for Kids, will lead her young Baltimore City musicians as they play Italian and contemporary music using the old style bow back mandolin. An Italian dance troupe, VIGINTI MILLYS from Lascari, Sicily will perform outdoors as part of the festivities. The Baltimore School for the Arts Senior Acting Ensemble, under the direction of Theater Head, Donald Hicken, and Sally Boyett, Artistic Director of the Annapolis Shakespeare Company, will perform scenes from Carlo Goldoni’s “A Servant of Two Masters,” staged in several of the Little Italy restaurants. A comprehensive schedule of events will be published on this website and posted in the Little Italy restaurants. Also on the weekends from 11:30 a.m. until 3 p.m., the PNC Children’s Chalk Center, a family Madonnari arts area, will be staffed by art students on the Da Mimmo parking lot between Albemarle and South High Streets along Stiles Street and free chalk will be provided to young artists who will be able to draw on the street within the confines of the parking lot. Trinity Street will be the location for children’s street theater and face painting. Children are also welcomed on the bocce court on Stiles Street, where bocce lessons will be provided. Festival events on Columbus Day, Sunday, October 4 include The 125th Columbus Day Parade, preceded by a wreath laying ceremony by civic groups at the base of the Christopher Columbus statue in the Columbus Piazza and followed by a bocce tournament and a live rooftop concert in a tribute to The Beatles 1969 concert on the roof of Apple Records provided by Baltimore’s “Fab Five”, The Apple Scruffs. All of the foregoing events are free and open to the public.