Focolare Movement

Gen Verde: On the Other Side

Aug 17, 2015

After a year of hard work and musical research, the band’s new CD will soon be released and will be available to the public from mid-September 2015.

Gen Verde On the Other Side Eleven songs in five languages: English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Korean. 47 minutes of pop-rock and world music, full of passion, force, vitality in music and words branded Gen Verde. According to the band’s manager, Sally McAllister, “This album is autobiographical and biographical at the same time.” It is an affirmation shared by all the members of the group. In fact, as they say, “It is biographical because the undisputed protagonist of this album is humanity that recounts its story: of people in the face of present-day challenges, the tragedies and conquests, history which marks the world’s pace, people moving along the roads of the planet in search of a land, dignity, and a place they can call their home.” But it is also autobiographical, since it is “imbued with our own stories and the musical cultures we come from.” “We wanted to try our hand,” the Gen Verde members say, “in recounting the moments and facts that marked a turning point in our lives. Different paths, with various departure points from physical sites and soul places that oftentimes are diametrically opposed but which all target that sole horizon of fraternity.” In fact, “Every piece tells a story, such as Voz de la verdad, a homage to Oscar Romero,” says the Salvadorean, Xochitl Rodríguez. And also Chi piange per te? –  the cry of thousands of migrants on the banks of the Mediterranean, which continues to echo across Africa to Europe, and in every continent where people are forced to leave in order to survive. Another song You’re Part of Me is the interrupted story of the Korean people, who refuse to give in to the scandal of separation. The musical arrangement is K-pop, a genre that is very popular today with the young Koreans, and says the desire for unity is not an issue of 70 years ago, but is one of today, of this generation that will not give up.”

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Newsletter

Thought of the day

Related post

35 years of the EoC: a path of regeneration

35 years of the EoC: a path of regeneration

A gathering, a celebration and a commitment: this is how the 35th anniversary of the Economy of Communion was lived. We celebrated the journey we have undertaken to renew together our commitment to continuing to build a more humanitarian and regenerative economy.

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

A precious legacy: Chiara Lubich’s ‘Paradise ’49’

The first presentation of Chiara Lubich’s book ‘Paradise ’49’ took place on the 22nd of May 2026 in the Paul VI Hall at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The book is a collection of writings in which the Foundress of the Focolare Movement bears witness to and shares her mystical experience from the years 1949 to 1951.

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

Chiara Lubich: “Do you know where we are?”

It is the 16th of July 1949. Chiara Lubich is in Tonadico, in the Dolomite Mountains in northern Italy, for a period of rest together with some of her first companions. They are joined there by the Honourable Igino Giordani, whom Chiara called Foco. On that day, Chiara and Foco sealed a Pact of unity, a prelude to the spiritual and mystical experience that Chiara would live between 1949 and 1951. This period is known as “Paradise ’49”, the writings from which have recently been published in a book (for now in Italian). In the introduction to the book, the theologian Piero Coda offers some insights “For a theological reading” of the text. Here is an extract, relating specifically to the Pact of the 16th of July, together with a short video of Chiara Lubich from 20 December 1999, in which she shares this experience of light with the Gen, the young people of the Focolare Movement.