On 24th April 2013 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Task Force and the Research Centre on Music and the Great War of Reggio Emilia, which performs researches, concerts and publishing activities on the music produced during the First World War.
The activity of the Research Centre is focused on the noises of the war (weapons, communications, voices), military music (parades, hymns…), songs at the front, behind the lines, in the POW Camps, and in the territories occupied, on composers and the war, the Jazz, the music memory of the War (cinema and variety shows), the “amputated” sounds, and the silence.
The Centre also collects the works of non-fighting composers written before, during and after the war, provided that they are related to it. From the works of authorship (from Alfredo Casella to Ravel) to folk and trench songs, the Research Centre already carried out the census of over 1000 songs from the 23 Countries involved. Furthermore, on the occasion of the Centenary, it intends to develop its extensive programme of radio events and concerts, devoted to the dissemination and to the spreading of war melodies.