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W
HEN MUSICIAN SYLVIE LEWIS MOVED
into her flat, she staged a concert on her
fifth-floor balcony. There she performed
for an audience made up of her neighbours, sat on
the nearby balconies. Reaching across boundaries,
languages and musical styles is the major theme of
Sylvie’s life in Rome; in particular as a singer with the
Orchestra Piazza Vittorio.
The Orchestra was formed 10 years ago in Rome’s
Esquilino neighbourhood – a lively area which moves to
the rhythms of its large immigrant population. Much of
the energy centres on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele – the
square that gave the group its name.
Featuring musicians from across the globe, the
Orchestra has blazed a trail for world music.
“I first saw them at a concert five years ago,” says
Sylvie. “Their sound was so joyful that to try to join in,
I danced like a madwoman. It turned out that
they were my destiny– but not before some classic
Roman confusion.”
“Mario Tronco, the orchestra’s director, invited me to
audition. He sent me a CD of Mozart arias, and asked
me to perform them in my own folk-pop style. I spent
a few days sitting in my pyjamas – that’s how I do my
best work – and prepared a piano version.
“I thought they would say, ‘That’s great, when can
you start?’ but it was a case of ‘Thanks, we’ ll let you
know ’. Convinced I'd never hear from him again, I
took off on holiday and was away when the call came
to offer me the job. It took several weeks before the
message finally reached me that Mario wanted me to
play the part of Pamina in Mozart’s
The Magic Flute.
”
The Orchestra’s
Magic Flute
blends a global mix of
rock and reggae. “We use 13 different languages in
the opera,” explains Sylvie. “I am singing in English,
alongside musicians performing in Wolof (Senegalese)
Arabic, German, Italian and Spanish. The audience has
subtitles so they can follow.”
Sylvie fits in perfectly with the Orchestra’s
international pedigree. Growing up in London’s Notting
Hill – “before it was trendy,” she insists – at 18 she
moved to California to study music before hitting the
Los Angeles music scene. With two albums and her
haunting song
By Heart
featuring in the second season
of US hit series
Grey’s Anatomy
, she seemed set for a
career as an Anglo-American singer songwriter.
ABOVE:
SYLVIE WITH
SENAGOL’S EL HADJI YERI
SAMB, AND THE ORCHESTRA
PIAZZA VITTORIA
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2012
WIZZ MAGAZINE
51
ROME
FEATURE