In about four months’ time, the Italian city of Turin will be the centre of Europe, when the biggest music spectacle in the world is brought to the stage here. After Måneskin won the 65th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam on the 22nd of May last year, Victoria, Ethan, Thomas and Damiano ensured that this incredible task is now in the hands of the Italians. The event will be broadcasted live in millions of living rooms, so the pressure is high. Behind the scenes, people are working very hard. One of the first things the host country decides is which city will have the honour of hosting the big music festival. Back in September, the Italians decided it was going to be Turin. Another important element is the theme. Each edition has its own theme, which sometimes is very brief and concise, and sometimes more evocative and poetic. Yesterday, the motto under which this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will be held was finally announced: The Sound of Beauty.
After a long year of lockdowns and closing ourselves off to the outside world, the song contest in Rotterdam last May brought about new hope
I loved it from the very first second I heard it. It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? I believe it’s so different, and therefore so distinctive. The Netherlands came up with the theme Open Up! A call to open up to anything and anyone. Both the message – we make no distinction and everyone belongs – and the style – short and sweet, like a positive command – are thoroughly Dutch, with a touch of Rotterdam. No nonsense and fully embodying what the locals live by: don’t talk the talk, but walk the walk. When the song contest in 2020 could not go through because of the pandemic, the year after the theme became Open Up Again. Suddenly, opening up took on a whole new meaning. After a long year of lockdowns and closing ourselves off to the outside world, the song contest in Rotterdam last May brought about new hope. It was the first major event that could finally take place again. At last, we could physically open up to the world again – albeit wearing a face mask and keeping the distance to one other. That’s how the theme of ‘my’ song contest, the festival I had the honour to experience from the heart of it as Italy’s Delegation Host, was even more suitable than we could have ever imagined when it was first approved at the end of 2019.
The committee must have asked themselves the question: What does music look like if you depict it visually?
Back to Italy. The Sound of Beauty it is. Along with the theme, the logo was presented that very soon will be found all over Turin and in every (digital) communication. This year, the traditional Eurovision logo is placed in a circle that’s surrounded by what appears to be an abstract flower, drawn in hundreds of lines like a geometrical representation. Of course, there is a story behind this, and the more I find out about it, the more beautiful I think it is. It turns out to be a visual representation of The Sound of Beauty. Or rather the other way round: of the beauty of sound. The committee must have asked themselves the question: What does music look like if you depict it visually? The answer was found in cymatics, the study of sound wave phenomena, which owes its name to the Swiss researcher Hans Jenny. He discovered the visual representation of sound, and therefore music. By placing very fine powder on a metal plate and applying acoustic wave vibrations to it, the powder formed itself into specific patterns. When the vibrations of harmonious melodies were applied, the powder formed symmetrical shapes and compositions similar to mandala configurations (you know, those oriental figures now found in colouring books). Isn’t that incredible?
Italy is once again showing its very best side. Poetic, dreamy and with a sense of drama, where beauty is considered the greatest good
But what will the arena look like? We’ll have to wait a little more before we find out, but it has already been announced that the classical Italian gardens, the Giardini all’italiana, were the most important source of inspiration for the design of the stage. The beautiful figures in the gardens have a similar structure to the musical flowers created by sound waves. Moreover, both the logo and the stage design hint towards the sun, and at a cosmic and energetic portal that can be opened with the sound of beauty. That’s all I need to know to be able to conclude that Italy is once again showing its very best side. Poetic, dreamy and with a sense of drama, where beauty is considered the greatest good. It’s the complete opposite of the no nonsense theme of the Netherlands, but I love both. The down-to-earth Dutch mentality of tackling things versus the Italian talent, ánd the priority they give to it, to discover the beauty in everything. It’s precisely this diversity that makes my own life so exciting and I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.