There was no melancholy, no sadness, just the desire to listen to good music together, that songwriting that he appreciated so much. Many friends wanted to remember Renato Costabile almost a year after his death in an initiative promoted by the family but immediately embraced by Mario Massaro, the artistic director of the Porta Cenere company with which he collaborated on several occasions, and promoted by Oltrezona. “What you want it to be a song”, held on Saturday 26 September at the Palacultura in Rende, was not just a multi-voice concert with artists already heard at the musical festival of the same name curated by him – first in San Fili, in the Teatri Meridiani artistic residence, then at the municipal theater of Mendicino – but a starting point for a new project. On stage Velia Ricciardi with Bruno Marrazzo, Canio Loguercio, Paolo Capodacqua, Jennà Romano, Patrizio Trampetti, Peppe Voltarelli with Giuseppe Olivito. Cultured songwriting, poetry in music, jazz, popular music, experimentation and a bit of local rock: different musical experiences, great professionals united by a feeling of gratitude towards a person capable of creating connections and relationships. Songwriting understood as a common meeting ground between different generations, sensibilities and artistic paths. None of the artists received compensation and the proceeds from the tickets were donated to the Punto e a Capo association, represented during the event by vice-president Antonella Urso: «Renato was part of our family. For the kids he was “Uncle Renato”.
A phrase posted on social media was the starting point for her daughter Gilda Maria, on stage together with her brother Lorenzo: «When we realized that dad wasn’t coming back, that no one would give him back to us, a spark went off in a small corner of our heart. We believe that we can start again from pain, transforming it into something new through the love he gave us and the beauty he left us.”
The idea is to make “What do you want a song to be” an annual event dedicated to Italian songwriting and, over time, to build a national award for young singer-songwriters around the name of Renato Costabile. The event at the Palacultura did not try to fill a void but laid the foundations so that new stories of life and music can be born from that void.
