Assessors’ Band Performs Vintage Covers at End of Season Event

Politicians gather for the ‘Assessors’ Band’ performance. A large audience of distinguished guests, curious visitors, and tourists provided the backdrop for the “End of Season Evening,” organized by the two municipal tourism assessors from Torri and Bussolengo, respectively Giorgio Bonoldi and Gaetano Pasetto, and their colleague from the Province, Davide Bendinelli. Thus, on Wednesday evening, beneath the arches of the Hotel Gardesana, the “Assessors’ Band,” as the group “The Com. Pro” was dubbed (from the initials of the words “comune” and “provincia,” where the musicians are respectively assessors), put on a show performing a 1960s revival and covers of artists such as Celentano, Mina, and many others.

The noteworthy “honor gallery” included prominent guests who wanted to attend, strictly in the front row, an evening that was officially “anything but formal,” as Deputy Mayor and band member Giorgio Bonoldi had declared the day before. Attendees ranged from the President of the Province, Aleardo Merlin, to the Agriculture Assessore, Albino Pezzini; mayors of Brenzone, Giovanni Zappalà; Affi, Carla De Boni; Bussolengo, Lino Venturini; Torri, Alberto Vedovelli; and Enrico Merenda, President of the Lake Tourism Promotion Agency; Fernando Morando from the Lake Promotion Agency; Stefano Zaninelli, CEO of the Verona Municipal Transport Company; Enrico Bianchini, patron of Cantalago. None wanted to miss the “musical performance” of the three assessors.

Expressing personalities and musical performance

In truth, they “are now far from being amateur dabblers,” as joked by the group’s voice, Gaetano Pasetto. Accompanied on guitar by Bonoldi and with Bendinelli on keyboards, the Bussolengo assessor performed, singing and engaging the audience in ballads, fulfilling, for once, singing requests rather than political speeches. The foreign audience present in Torri, engaged by the introductions and simultaneous translations into English and German by Giuseppe Lorenzini, enjoyed the event immensely. There was also a “cultural moment,” with poet Garcia Lorca’s verses recited by television journalist Giovanna Zofrea, and an unexpected performance by a “special soloist” who was not part of the “Assessors’ Band,” namely Fernando Morando.

Morando, at his own turn, sang songs whose lyrics were written by the unforgettable Luciano Beretta. Although the evening “had no particular purpose other than ending the tourist season with cheer,” as the three assessors stated, it is believed that, at this rate, the “The Com. Pro” could be “signed” up for the next season to perform as a “political-tourist attraction” in the towns around Lake Garda.