Around the World – Week beginning 3 September 2023 - Preview
Recorded in Puglia, La Notte della Taranta, mainly.
Last week
This week
Music from: Brazil, Catalonia, Ecuador, England, Ghana, Guyana, Israel, New York, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Spain, Zimbabwe but mainly Italy and more precisely Puglia.
Music by: Antonio Castrignanò, Alessia Tondo, Antonio Amato Ensemble, Baklava, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Consuelo Alfieri, Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood, Enza Pagliara, FRA!, Guillem Ballaz, Humazapas, Lee Fry Music, Ludovico Einaudi, Maria Mazzotta & Pulcinella, Mokoomba, Nickodemus, Nidi D'Arac, Nina Virant Vira, Officina Zoe, Phil Manzanera, Raúl Rodríguez, Wilson das Neves & Seu Jorge, and Yoruba Singers.
This week’s Featured Album: Vita Nova by Salvatore Galeanda.
Salvatore Galeanda - Vita Nova (Video Promo)
This week Around the World is from Puglia, Italy.
This week for the first hour I’m out of the studio and sipping coffee in Castrignano de' Greci, a small town of about 4,000 people in Puglia, Southern Italy. I’m here for an event I’ve wanted to come to for many years and the first part of the show is all about it – La Notte della Taranta.
I was in Castrignano, starting with Antonio Castrignano
Antonio Castrignanò feat. Cici Cafaro - ARIA GADDHIPULINA
Antonio Castrignano isn’t from Castrignano, but from Galatina a bit further south.
Around the World from Italy this week – and what is it that brings me here to this little town in the heal of the boot at the end of the summer?
It’s an event being held just down the road in Melpignano. An annual event which takes Taranta music, music from this region, to towns and villages here for the month of August culminating in the huge la Notte della Taranta The Night of the Tarantuala. And that is happening in just a few hours. And when it starts it will sound like this.
Pizzica - Orchestra Popolare Notte della Taranta
Each year there is a guest concert leader but there is a permanent or semi-permanent group of people who form the core musicianship of the orchestra. And I’ll be focusing on some of them in this part of the show including the featured album.
There are 4 or 5 women who sing in the chorus every year, I particularly want to play music by some of them. Two are on this next piece - Alessia Tondo, who started singing with the chorus when she was 12 years old, and Enza Pagliara – who has been a leading voice in the region for a couple of decades. This is from Ludoviko Einaudi’s studio album - Taranta Project.
Ludovico Einaudi - TARANTA - Official Videoclip (english version) - TARANTA PROJECT
Ludoviko Einaudi was the concert director in 2010 and 2011. Following that he recorded the Taranta Project with many of the musicians who appear on the stage every year and guests like Ballaké Sissoko, and Justin Adams, along with Alessia Tondo who is carving out her own career in music. Last year her Sita album was my Number 2 of 2022.
Alessia Tondo - ARIA (official video)
PIZZICA DI STIFANI ENZA PAGLIARA
Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino have been around for about 40 years, through two generations. Many – if not all of the musicians in Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino – have been onstage for La Notte della Taranta. Their singer Giancarlo Paglialunga is a particul a mainstay of the event. Here on voice, tamburello, tapan with singer Maria Mazzotta, of whom more later.
Nu te fermare - Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino (Official video)
There is an orchestra of musicians – from percussion, to mandolins and violins, harps, bag-pipes, flutes, guitars – electric and acoustic - and pianos, synthesisers, DJs … and this is beginning to resemble the end credits on Tubular Bells. One year there was a even a spoons player.
La Notte della Taranta 2010 - Nanna nanna
All of the singers, maybe 8 or more, are fantastic performers, and while this is my first visit to this event, I have consumed so many videos over the years – like a pet Labrador consumes doggie treats - I have got to know their work quite well.
What’s really striking that some haven’t made their own records. I’d love to play something by Alessandra Caiulo on the radio show. She has the most incredible voice and stage presence. But she has only appeared as a member on the chorus on a few albums. Here she is as part of the Ensemble.
Notte della Taranta 2020 - ELA, ELA – MU CONDÀ (canto in grico)
Information about other members of the ensemble are here including Enza Pagliara, Consuela Alfieri, and Antonio Amato who I will also be playing music by
The concert director this year was Fiorella Mannoia. Some of the guest performers from Italian pop and rock are Arisa, known as the Golden Voice of Italian Music and the singer-songwriter Brunori Sas.
Here’s one from Maria Mazzotta, this time from WOMEX. Amazingly a pre lunch performance. I was in the audience somewhere dumbstruck by her emotional storytelling.
MARIA MAZZOTTA live at WOMEX 2021 (Porto)
Here’s how to hear Around the World
Sunday:
Bangor FM 107.9 (Radio Garden) 7:00 pm local time BST (8:00 pm CET)
Slice Audio 10:00 pm local time BST (11:00 pm CET)
Ferry FM 10:00 pm local time BST (11:00 pm CET)
Radio Larne 10:00 pm local time BST (11:00 pm CET)
Armagh City Radio 10:00 pm local time BST (11:00 pm CET)
Monday:
Waterwaves Radio: 8:00 pm UK time (21:00 CET)
KNC Radio St Lucia 6:00 am local time (11:00 am BST 12:00 noon CET)
Akaroa World Radio 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am BST, 12:00 noon CET)
World FM 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am BST, 12:00 noon CET)
U Radio Sri Lanka 7:30 pm local time SLT (3:00 pm BST, 4:00 pm CET)
Tuesday:
Lisburn’s 98FM (Radio Garden) 7:00 pm local time BST (8:00 pm CET)
FM105 Down Community Radio (Radio Garden) 7:00 pm local time BST (8:00 pm CET)
Wednesday:
World FM 4:00 am local New Zealand Time (5:00 pm Tuesday BST, 6:00 pm CET)
Slice Audio 4:00 am local time BST (5:00 am CET)
Radio Skye (Radio Garden) 10:00 pm local time BST (11:00 pm CET)
Friday:
Akaroa World Radio 2:00 pm local New Zealand Time (3:00 am BST 4:00 am CET)
Saturday:
Essential Radio Midnight to 2:00 am local time BST (01:00 am CET)
World FM 10:00 pm local New Zealand Time (11:00 am BST, 12:00 noon CET)