Who we are
A strong mark of respect for those Fallen in every War and to invoke peace and brotherhood among the peoples of the entire world.
The Bell was cast in Trent on the 30th of October 1924 using bronze provided by the nations which took part in the First World War. In Rovereto it was blessed and given the name of “Maria Dolens”[Mary of Sorrows] on the 24th May 1925 and inaugurated on the 4th October of the same year and placed on the Malipiero Bastion of Rovereto Castle.
Maria DolensRovereto’s monumental Bell, tolls every evening at nightfall in hopes that human beings, in memory of those who fell in every war , anywhere in the world, may find the pathway to Peace. The largest bell in the world with a full peal, was conceived by Don Antonio Rossaro, a priest, in the aftermath of the First World War. On the 4th October 1925, for the first time, Maria Dolens chimed 100 times, and its sound of peace and brotherhood among peoples reached the four corners of the earth.
Since the creation of Maria Dolens numerous presidents, ambassadors, kings, religious leaders of all faiths and nations have paid homage to the Bell and accepted its message against conflict. In total, 93 countries, populations and International Organizations have signed the “Memorandum of Peace” of the Peace Bell Foundation ; their flags, waving around the Bell, bear witness to their adherence to the message of Peace conveyed by the Maria Dolens Bell.
On the 18th January 1968, the President of the Italian Republic officially created the “Peace Bell Foundation”, which seeks educate people and promote a Culture of Peace by means of various events and exhibitions involving people from all over the world. In 2006, the Peace Bell Foundation began collaborating with the Council of Europe, and in 2009 the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) recognized the Foundation’s Special Consultative Status, renewed in 2013.
The New Era Museum (NEM) is a unique museum without walls dedicated to the humanistics of the mobile digital arts and
one of the world’s three iPhoneografia / Mobile Photography centres.
Based on an idea of digital photographer and video maker, Andrea Bigiarini,
NEM’s aim is to spread the notion of a popular art form available to all thanks to an artistic movement constantly active all over the world.
Its mission is to create awareness and diffuse the use of artist digital mobile photography
and stimulate the creation of works availing of this new popular art form, a New Renaissance,
with neither censorship nor filters, open to anyone wishing to change present-day play, society and culture.
Mobile Photography is a unique worldwide artistic phenomenon alongside and akin only to Street-Art.
The Pollock Project is the intuitional brain-child of Marco Testoni based on the aesthetic impact of Art-Jazz, a surprising, evocative mix of contemporary jazz, electronic music and the visual arts. For some years now, the project’s preferential relationship with the photographers of New Era Museum has led to the production of events like The Unexpected Happening (Parco della Musica Auditorium, Rome, 12th March 2016) and the Equinox Experience | The Klimt Experience (Auditorium Santo Stefano al Ponte, Florence, 12th March 2017).
Marco Testoni is a polyhedral figure, a composer and percussionist whose highly variegated career has brought him into contact with a broad variety of artists, permitting him to develop diverse techniques and styles and to write and implement many different musical projects, from jazz to video art, from cinema soundtracks to art songs. As the architect of the Pollock Project for some time now he has been collaborating with contemporary film directors and visual artists and institutions like Victor Enrich, Istvan Horkay, Mark Street, Antonia Carmi, NEM - New Era Museum, Andrea Bigiarini creating installations and video clips. He is permanently engaged in producing music for cinema, fiction and publicity as both composer and music-supervisor. He won the 2014 Premio Colonne Sonore [Soundtrack award] for the best original song for films with Io credo, io penso, io spero sung by Antonella Ruggero for the movie BlackOut. In 2015 he was awarded the Premio Roma Videoclip as Composer of the Year. As an instrumentalist, with his evocative set of handpans, Marco Testoni restores to percussions their capacity to evoke the lyricism of rhythm, the hallmark of the artistic-musical style musicale we find in his solo recording Impatiens, with Billy Cobham at his side.
From classical to jazz, from sound tracks to pop. He has interpreted as a soloist some of the most moving melodies the Italian cinema has produced recently (Ennio Morricone, Nicola Piovani, Franco Piersanti).
Singer and refined interpreter, Elisabetta Antonini is active upon the contemporary jazz scene. She studied vocal and instrumental jazz languages in the USA and Italy with some of the world’s best: Murphy, B. Harris, N. Winstone, J. Niemack, J. Clayton and B. Stoloff, M.P. De Vito, A. Vitro, R. Treece. Her latest solo album The Beat Goes On is a highly original musical tribute to the Beat Generation issued on the prestigious British Candid Records label. In 2014 she won the Top Jazz’s best talent award.
He is a Swedish guitar player and composer. An eclectic artist who plays in various musical projects: from prog to acoustic jazz, from ambient to songwriting. Collaborations with: Morgan Agren, Elizabeth Cutler.