July 3, 2007

ESD VI,
Dear Friends,

If you missed Tuesday’s ESD, you indeed missed a very exciting evening: an ever increasing number (almost 40 this time!) of very interesting guests from all parts of the world had the unique opportunity to experience (and this is the only word to describe the emotion provoked!) an amazing concert performed by the extremely talented and local fellow ESDers Lucio Degani, first violinist for the Solisti Veneti, and Ferdinando Mussutto, worldwide renown pianist. This, in addition to the wonderful company, tasty food and friendly atmosphere, as well as a few new changes, made the evening even more memorable!

Despite not having the company of our Austrian friends who will join us again in the coming weeks, we had the pleasure to meet an interesting couple, Larry and Sherry, from Houston, Texas, who spend their summers in their house in Venice and who stayed in the Villa for the night.

Our dear friend Frere Jacques was with us again and to our great pleasure blessed the dinner and reminded us how lucky we are to gather together and have good food on the table. Frere Jacques spends his time divided between Palestine and the Association Arco della Pace based in Udine and we announced that 10% of the fee for the dinner will go to this Association.

Dinner supplied, as usual, by the always efficient Marco whose menu, was based on a really delicious pasta with shrimps as well as exquisite lamb cutlets, accompanied by a very refined selection of wine, kindly supplied by the very well-known wine estate PERUSINI di Gramogliano. This was the introduction of another change to make the evenings even more interesting: Inviting well know and up and coming wine producers to present their wines paired with the food. During this dinner, the young representative of the family, Carlo, the son of Resi and Giacomo De Pace, made a short but very effective presentation of his wines and property and really charmed all of us.

But the major attraction of the evening was surely the magnificent concert by Lucio and Ferdinando. Both just back from their concert tours, one in Germany, the other in South America, they played in the magnificent Music Room of the Villa challenging and romantic pieces by Brahms, Kreisler, Rachmaninov, and De Falla, just to mention a few. The concert ended with a wonderful Gershwin piano piece played passionately by Ferdinando.

The program will continue next Tuesday. We cannot say now what surprises await us. For sure the fun will continue, with the usual good food (the menus will be carefully studied to give the best combination of quality and healthiness) and even more good wine, which will be offered by a new supplier.

All this will be possible if we can count on your support, not only by participating but also by promoting the initiative among other like-minded friends. We particularly thanks the institutional support of Renata Capria d’Aronco of the Unesco Club di Udine and Kip and Angie Kelland of Keep Talking.

So, the next appointment is on Tuesday July 10th, same time same place, but always open to new friends who might enjoy an evening speaking English with people from all around the world. We hope to be able to continue this initiative and to enlarge the number of people interested in spending some time in good company with no communication barriers.

Please see below for details. Invite a friend and let us know if you can join us.

Look forward to seeing you soon!

The ESD Team

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