elcome to the first issue of the Bogliasco Foundation’s BF News. I am pleased to have this chance to tell our donors, Fellows, and friends about some of the numerous events and activities that have taken place over the past months.

Indeed, it has been a very busy year! We started off the New Year auspiciously when on January 16, Professor Giuseppe Pericu, the Mayor of Genoa, presented the Bogliasco Foundation with the Grifo d'Oro prize. The highest honor given by the city of Genoa, this prize is awarded to individuals who have made important contributions to Genoa or the region of Liguria. Among past recipients are Shimon Peres, Renzo Piano, Vanessa Redgrave and Charles Rosen. In rare instances, this honor has been conferred on organizations, and the Bogliasco Foundation is the first foundation ever to have received this award. In addition to remarks by Mayor Pericu and me, two of our Fellows, Dario Calimani and Julia Dobrovolskaja, gave testimonials about the Bogliasco Foundation and Liguria Study Center.

On April 30, we were honored to have renowned poet, librettist and Bogliasco Fellow J.D. McClatchy offer a poetry reading for Bogliasco friends at a reception at Michael’s restaurant in New York.

The Liguria Study Center opened its doors to the Bogliasco community for a special concert held in the garden of Villa dei Pini on July 13. Guitarist and vocalist Beppe Gambetta performed for an audience of over 300 persons. Gambetta has performed throughout the world, in such venues as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles, The Basement in Sydney, Australia, and Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Italy.

I am pleased to share with you some images from these events. View photos.

Over the past year the Bogliasco Foundation has undertaken a complete overhaul of its website. As before, the new site contains information for applicants, but also now includes quotes from Fellows, many additional images of the Study Center and the Liguria region, as well as a section on Support. This section outlines two new donor programs we have recently launched, the Società di Amici, which is our annual giving group, and the Alegro Society, which recognizes those who have generously provided for the Foundation with a planned gift. We are also pleased to now have the ability to accept gifts online. If you have not visited the website recently, please do so at www.bfny.org.

I wish you a very pleasant and productive fall season, and hope to see you soon, either in Bogliasco or New York.

Warm regards,

James S. Harrison
President

We welcome submissions from Fellows to BF News and would be delighted to include news of your accomplishments and activities in our next (spring) issue. Please email us at development@bfny.org.

If, at any point, you wish to unsubscribe to BF News, please click here.

Hanneke Beaumont’s sculptures adorn the European Union

Hanneke Beaumont, born in Holland and currently living in Belgium, was a Bogliasco Fellow in Visual Arts in 1998. It makes sense that Ms. Beaumont, who creates life-size figural sculpture, would find her way to Bogliasco: she works largely in marble from the famous quarries of Pietrasanta, in Tuscany, near the southern tip of Liguria. Since the spring of 2007, Ms. Beaumont’s “Stepping Forward” has announced the entrance to the European Union Council in Brussels. Her work was also on display in a solo show at the Castle of Gruyères in Switzerland through October 21, 2007.

Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner premieres at City Opera

Bogliasco Fellow Richard Danielpour’s opera Margaret Garner premiered in September at New York City Opera. This opera, described by The New York Times as “an honorable work with an effective dramatic sweep”, is based on a true story of a runaway slave who killed her daughter rather than let her return to a life of slavery. The libretto was written by Toni Morrison, who had based her 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Beloved, on the subject.

Gurcharan Das brings the old and new together

Gurcharan Das, a Bogliasco Fellow in Philosophy in 2006, recently published an article called “Capitalist Morals” in The Times of India, in which he recounts his experience as a member of the board of directors of a company engaged in bribery. Although Mr. Das is most well known as an author and journalist — his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — he is also familiar with ancient texts. In “Capitalist Morals,” Mr. Das asks, “Are people honest only because of the fear of punishment? Without checks would people behave like Duryodhana in the Mahabharata?” When he was in residence at the Liguria Study Center, Mr. Das was working on a book project that dealt with the ancient Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata.

For more of Gurcharan Das’ writings, click to visit his website.

Michael Glier’s visual record of the northern hemisphere

Michael Glier, who traveled to the Ligurian coast in 2004 as a Bogliasco Fellow in Visual Arts, is on the move again. While there, he pursued a series of works called “Ligurian Garden,” which took as their point of departure the distinctive landscape of the Golfo di Paradiso. This summer, Mr. Glier left his post as Professor and Chair of the Art Department at Williams College behind to travel from the North Pole to the equator for a year, making landscape paintings along the way. His weekly postings can be found here.

Mark Strand Wins Italian Poetry Prize

Bogliasco Fellow in Literature and Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Strand was honored with the Cetonaverde Poesia prize in July, for his many years of commitment to excellence in literature. Mr. Strand, who was in residence at the Liguria Study Center in 2001, is only the second recipient of this prize, which is granted to a non-Italian for his or her career.

In addition to being honored with a prize for his life-long achievements as a poet, writer, editor and translator, Mr. Strand presented another Cetonaverde Poesia prize, reserved for an Italian writer under the age of 35, to Giovanni Turra. The ceremony took place in the Tuscan city of Cetona, on the occasion of the release of Mr. Strand’s most recent book of poetry in Italian, Uomo e Cammello (Man and Camel).

Originally from Canada and a long-time resident of the United States, Mr. Strand is no stranger to Italy. More than 40 years before his Bogliasco Fellowship, he studied at the University of Florence on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1982, he was a Writer in Residence at the American Academy in Rome. He has also taught in Brazil and translated the work of Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade from its original Spanish.

Mr. Strand’s many honors include an Ingram Merrill Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship and Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his book of poetry, Blizzard of One. He is currently Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

For more information on the Cetonaverde Poesia, click here.

Two Bogliasco Fellows in Literature meet again

Earlier this year, Elizabeth McCracken was named the Zale Writer-in-Residence at Newcomb College of Tulane University. Ms. McCracken received this prestigious award dedicated to women writers six years after she was awarded a Bogliasco Fellowship in Literature in 2001. Ms. McCracken was in Bogliasco just a few months after fellow novelist Ann Patchett, who was a Bogliasco Fellow in Literature in the fall of 2000. In March, Ms. McCracken and Ms. Patchett met for an interview in honor of Ms. McCracken’s residency.

For more on Elizabeth McCracken’s work visit RandomHouse.com.

We welcome submissions from Fellows to BF News and would be delighted to include news of your accomplishments and activities in our next (spring) issue. Please email us at development@bfny.org.

If, at any point, you wish to unsubscribe to BF News, please click here.

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