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Stefano Di Fraia voice
Pasquale di Nunzio wind instruments
Giovanni Migliaccio chords instruments
Wally Pituello cello
Raffaele Filaci percussions
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This concert is a homage that the singer Stefano Di Fraia, coming
from the tradition of the lyric song, old music and classical music
in general, wants to return to the traditional musical culture of
south Italy. His voice, suspended between the register of dramatic
tenor and baritone, is accompanied by five musicians who play any
kind of instrument, coming from different musical cultures.
There is, in this concert, the very beautiful Stefano's voice
singing with popular instruments like the traditional guitar or
the mandole and with old instruments like the cromorne or the
violoncello and with modern instruments, but of old sound, like
the sax soprano or the clarinet. Very important is the application
of the percussions. There is a great number of them, to reproduce
and find the major sounds of the land, and all dimensions, even
if the principal role is played by the tammorre, large drums of
rural origins, coming from the musical tradition of Vesuvius,
with the very serious sound and by the tymbales.
In this manner the voice, the songs, the instruments boast in
a kind of "cultural match" and give this spectacle a
unique character, old and modern, cultured and popular, solar
and sad, highlighting the nature of the land and people of that
was the Great Greece.
Stefano Di Fraia can praise many collaborations of very high
level, among which we quote that with Roberto De Simone. It sang
in Teatro San Carlo in Naples, in prestigious festivals like those
of Beaune, Bruges and Brussels and in important places like Teatro
of Zarzuela in Madrid, Filarmonie of Berlin, the Royaumont Foundation,
l'Opéra of Rennes.
With the cellist, we wanted for this project the participation
of three poly-instrumentalists, to precisely give this spectacle
the variety that the traditional music of the South offers us.
Voices and cello, finally, will be with the head of an imposing
series of string and wind instruments and percussions.
The repertory is taken completely from the musical traditions
of the areas of Southern Italy and the islands: Campania, Calabria,
Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily and Sardinia. They are hymns, songs
of devotion, new for the majority or very little carried out in
public, come by far in time, from pagan and rural worlds, these
old worlds which enable us to make still vibrate today our roots
and to find antiquated emotions, deeply related to the land.
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At the base of our artistic creation there are lots of reasons,
typically musical and on th4e necessity to realize such a project
now; the musicological and anthropological elements are the keynote.
It's very important for us to emphasize the way of living the religion
in the south of Italy, where the faith interlinks with the pagan
world of the Great Greece, with the Dionysian cult and the Mater
Dolorosa, with the Magic, in the end all that makes our concert
a concert
of religious music, and not a concert of church music. In the south
of Italy the Church has always been against the spontaneous religious
events by the population. Following the hundreds of religious feasts
that still exist in Campania and in other southern regions, we can
realize that since the Church couldn't control that way to manifest
people's faith, it had to get used to it. Indeed, during the several
procession like the ones in Procida, Sessa Aurunca, Guardia Sanframondi,
Benevento we can see the figure of one of the church's member, the
priest or the bishop, that walk with the pilgrims who abandon themselves
to exaggerated expression, very similar to the ones in Spain, Philippines,
or during the voodoo rites. The most interesting aspect of our proposal
then is the representation of this tradition, still very present:
the procession. Even nowadays, during the processions, we can still
hear the songs included in this programme. It's interesting to know
that nowadays in Campania and in all the south of Italy, there are
still more than 500 religious events and all of them are very followed
by young people.
With our work, give homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini, one of the
best Italians of 20° century. That's why we've built our concert
taking inspiration from the Vangelo secondo Matteo, that Pasolini
directed in Matera, with the local population and the rests of
a culture that is still alive in Lucania. After visiting places
like Palestine, Galilea, Jordan, the director realized that these
place were much more corrupted compared to the south of Italy.
The presence of Pasolini in this concert is very strong. His movie
I the base of our work, and allowed us to choose the songs and
the music; allowed us to represent the most important aspects
of our religion and faith; sadness and joy, contemplation and
crisis, clear and dark, tension and abandon, ugliness and beauty.
All that make us believe that life can't be deformed by the false,
the war and the dead. For this, we think it's important to let
us transport by the philosophy of these traditions, these rites
and these songs: it's with them that we find out that our only
divinity is life.
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