Ciao tutti –
Please Come to a Good-bye to Garden House Get-together
on Wednesday, October 24
Usually at our second meeting each month we have a speaker, who makes a presentation in Italian. And for the October 24 we had booked Claudio Mazzola from the UW Italian Department to present an overview of the films to be presented at the SIFF CInema Italian Style Festival, November 8-15. Unfortunately SIFF has still not announced the lineup of films for the Festival, so our speaker has been unable to put together material for his presentation.
Since this is our last meeting at Garden House and since so many of you had asked for a chance to make suggestions for a new meeting place, give your feedback and have your questions answered – we decided to throw a Good-bye to Garden House Get-together in place of the scheduled Italian presentation.
So here’s the plan:
- meet at 6:30 as usual. Please bring along an antipasto, vino or dolceto share
- 6:30 – 7:15 food and informal conversation preceded by a toast to Garden House
- 7:15 – 8:30 information and feedback meeting: where do we go from here?
Please join us on Wednesday, October 24 at 6:30 at Garden House. You’ll remember that it’s located at 2336 15th Avenue South in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
Avoid the traffic! The Garden House is a short walk from the Beacon Hill Light Rail Station.
As a special incentive to attend, I’ll be giving away 12 pairs of vouchers, good for free admission to any of the SIFF Cinema Italian Style films at the Festival to the members at our Good-bye to Garden House Get-together. Please come for a chance to win.
And as usual feel free to come early to help set up the room and start visiting. And, in any case, please come to say good-bye to this old friend, to this special venue that has hosted our Dante meetings for the last 40 or so years.
A presto –
Dan DeMatteis,
President, Dante Alighieri Society of Washington
Gabriella Vagnoli was born in Pisa, Tuscany, home of the famous Leaning Tower. She grew up in a multicultural family thanks to her Brazilian mom and remembers teaching Italian for the first time as a child to her Brazilian cousins. She obtained a Laurea in English and Spanish Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi di Pisa and during her college years spent a year in the University of Reading, UK, studying mainly the works of Shakespeare. After obtaining a Certificate as a Teacher of Italian (DITALS II) at the Università per Stranieri di Siena, she has taught in a full immersion school in Florence, a children's full immersion program in Chicago and a Community College in Illinois.
Tiziana was born and raised in Sardinia, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. She has always been passionate about foreign languages and cultures, and studied French and German at the Scuola Superiore Interpreti e Traduttori in Milan, where she obtained her first Foreign Languages and Interpreter BA degree. She then pursued her MA in English and German Language and Literature at IULM, one of the most prestigious universities in Milan, Italy for Language and Communication studies.
Nicla is a native of Napoli, Italy. She has a Laurea in Materie Letterarie (degree in humanities) and a Laurea in Pedagogia (degree in Education) from the Università degli Studi di Cassino. She earned her M.A in Italian and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. She has published articles and book chapters on gender and theater as well as politics and religion in Counter-Reformation Italy and in the last years, has been teaching Italian literature, language, and culture in different institutions. In addition to teaching in our program, Nicla is authorized to cover the role of esaminatrice and intervistatrice in our PLIDA Examination Board.
Born in the fabulous 80’s, Isabella was raised in Rome where she got her Degree in Teaching and Translation in foreign languages at the University ‘La Sapienza’.
Eric was born and raised in Como by an American mother and an Italian father. He holds a degree in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University in Milan and a Master’s in Corporate and International Finance from Durham University in the UK. His international background led him to pursue a business career in the United States, ultimately settling in Seattle, where his wife grew up.