Musical Education and the Job Market:The Employment of Children and Young People in the Neapolitan Music Industry with Particular Reference to the Period 1650-1806

Entertainment Industry, Youth, Economic, Creativity, Innovation;

In the second half of the 18th century Southern Italy shows sensitivity towards the Enlightenment suggestions on the role of the human resources as a factor of economic development.With the double objective of the exploitation, in favour of the State, of a cheap workforce at low cost and of the reduction of poverty and criminality rates, the destitute become the new focus of the policies for job training. In this paper we will concentrate on the initiatives of pre-existent institutions, like conservatories of music. The only Neapolitan case of four academies developed from welfare institutes for poor and neglected children into training places for musicians, was very important. This action was decisive for the starting of a musical market. The essential and emblematic nature of music and of its properties as a public asset had strong implications from the economic point of view and allowed the exploitation of its features and expressions as phenomena typical of the more general relationship between economy, society and artistic expression.The aim of this paper is to show a Southern Italy that paid attention to economic problems and to understand if what happened in those years influenced the vocational training of the workforce. Especially, with the aim of providing a history of children employment in the Italian entertainment industry in 18th and 19th centuries, this paper treats theatre and music in their widest sense, discussing the impact of all the elements and figures integral to the collaborative process of music and theatre making.