Francesco Bianconi, lead singer and writer of the contemporary Italian music band Baustelle, has produced over six successful albums as well as have contributed in other distinct musical and lyrical collaborations with other artists throughout the past 15 years.  Bianconi has also recently produced the soundtracks for two recent Italian films and has published two popular fictional books revolving around the universal themes of love—which is often unrequited— the hopelessness and futility of life, and the overall crux of one’s being. Bianconi credits his lyrical styling to having grown up reading philosophers such as Schopenhauer as well as the “Great Romantics”, specifically the writings of Giacomo Leopardi, considered by many one of the greatest Italian poets and whose prose is in a sense reincarnated into Bianconi’s music. Whether sung or read as style, Francesco Bianconi’s work has as a result struck a chord, so to speak, with a generation of Italian youth; a result that has created a revival for Giacomo Leopardi’s gifted power of evoking extreme emotion through prose. In essence, this presentation aims to “revitalize” traditional methods of teaching Italian classical poetry and prose by offering contemporary examples that have been inspired by the same works. The past can be taught via the familiar present, therefore obtaining a better grasp of these perpetual themes repeated over and over by humanity.