“What is music to me? Everything. Those who do not love music, who do not know music, must be helped, as it is one of the most important things of life”. (Interview to Claudio Abbado by Helmut Failoni, p.13, in “L’Orchestra. Claudio Ababdo e i musicisti della Mozart” by H.Failoni and F.Menarini, , Edizioni Cineteca of Bologna, 2014)

Roberto Saviano wrote: “Meeting Claudio Abbado is like meeting an idea”. With this image, we like to remember who inspired our association. The question we asked ourselves was: “What has he left for us?” and the thing is that everyone could make a personal list of answers: love for music, for life, for beauty; curiosity, notes, the passion for humanity, a smile, the purity of sounds. What Claudio Abbado left to the Mozart14 association is his social and educational heritage - one of his most pure insights. The most important insight in our opinion is: “music is necessary to life: it can change it, improve it and, in some cases, save it” (Claudio Abbado Preface to “La Musica salva la vita. Il “sistema” delle orchestre giovanili dal Venezuela all’Italia” by Ambra Radaelli, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, Milano, 2012).

A sentence that is both simple and powerful, unchanging and revolutionary. A vision that becomes real every time we perceive its effects on children at the hospital or the joy and proudness of prisoners singing in the Papageno choir. Being part of the Mozart14 association means sharing and spreading this message. This idea makes us continue on the path he sketched, not only by guaranteeing the projects he had created, but also by creating new ones and becoming the authentic promoters of his message.There are infinite contexts in which music can save a life, and these are the places where our activity is carried out, in the belief that “without music, life would be a mistake” (Friedrich Nietzsche).

Photo by Peter Fischli