Thirty Million Departures: Gianfranco Malorgio's "An Immigrant's Story"

Behind every statistic about migration is a suitcase, a train platform and a long goodbye. "An Immigrant's Story," composed by Gianfranco Malorgio, tries to put that human weight into sound. The piece was written with a possible film adaptation in mind and grew from a creative concept inspired by dramatic themes, such as the migration of peoples facing hardship. It pays tribute to Italian emigration, a massive movement of people that, from 1861 to the present day, has seen over thirty million Italians leave their homeland, resulting in a global population of roughly sixty to eighty million people of Italian descent.