{:en}Voice of Sardinia par excellence, it is singer Elena Ledda who wins with Lantiàs (S'Ard Music) the “City of Loano National Prize for Italian Traditional Music” awarded to the best album of 2017.
Now in its 14th year, the Loano Prize is the leading award for traditional music in Italy and is presented annually to the best musical production in the folk field by a jury of more than sixty specialized journalists.
From July 23 to 27, the setting of the event (the first curated by new artistic director Jacopo Tomatis) will be, as always, the Ligurian town of the same name in the province of Savona and will be titled reGenerations. An edition dedicated, therefore, to generational transitions in traditional music, with an eye on the most lively and original contemporary developments in the Italian folk scene.
In second place is “Canti, ballate e ipocondrie d'amore” by Canio Loguercio and Alessandro D'Alessandro (Squilibri); while Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino takes third place with “Canzoniere” (Ponderosa).
This year also marks the debut of the “Loano Youth Prize,” awarded by the jury of journalists to the best musical production by musicians under 35 who have not released more than two albums. The most voted album was “La muta vita” by Lame da Barba (self-production).
As usual, the artistic direction and organization of the Loano Prize awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award and the “Cultural Reality Award” to Gastone Pietrucci (La Macina) and Trouveur Valdotèn, respectively.
Best Album 2017 award to the album Làntias (S'ard Music), by Elena Ledda
Elena Ledda-winner of the Loano Award for best album with Làntias (S'ard Music)-gives voice to a record destined to become an instant classic of our tradition and lights the way like a lamp (Làntias, in Sardinian) in the night of the times we are living.
With a production that hints at “Mediterranean” world music, Làntias is a great work curated by a tight-knit group of musicians, composed with poetic lyrics and at the same time with ears wide open to today's challenges and problems.
Loano Youth Prize 2017 to the album La muta vita (self-production) by Lame da Barba
Francesco Paolino, Alessandro Predasso, Stefania Megale, Giuseppe “Pippi” Dimonte and Alberto Mammolino are the Lame da Barba, winners of the 2017 Loano Giovani Prize with the album La muta vita (self-production). If the barberia was in the past a real school of folk music and a meeting place for the men of the village, that of the Lame da Barba is rather a Mediterranean barberia, where tarantella and Balkan music, Italian folk waltzes and melodies from Turkey and Armenia meet. A contemporary barbershop, adapted to the needs and challenges of today's men and women, whichever side of the sea they come from.
2018 Lifetime Achievement Award to Gastone Pietrucci / La Macina
Research and repurposing, tradition and creation shatter and mix until they become indistinguishable under the ancient force of La Macina, who are awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. A Marchigiano Popular Singing and Research Group founded by Gastone Pietrucci in 1968, the ’other“ sixty-eight, since then they have traversed Italian music as protagonists, continuing their research activity on the folk tradition of the Marche region and taking it to the stages of songwriting (with the albums Aedo melancholic and ardent), rock (thanks to the collaboration with Gang) and even classical music and jazz, always in the sign of comparison and exchange between different generations and languages.
Cultural Reality Award 2018 to Trouveur Valdotèn
Active since the late 1970s, researchers and musicians, cultural workers and organizers of events (one above all the Ététrad festival, a landmark of its kind), the “Trouveurs Valdotèn”-who won the 2018 Cultural Reality Award-are one of the best examples of how the ways in which the knowledge of popular culture is transmitted survive and change in contemporary society. From their parents to their children, from Liliana Bertolo and Alessandro Boniface to the two siblings Rémy and Vincent, the name of the Trouveur Valdotèn has passed from one generation to the next, and their music, starting from the small Val d'Aosta, has become available for other music and other sounds, in countless projects (L'Orage, Toc Toc, Abnoba, Estremìa, Pitularita...).
The City of Loano Prize for Italian Traditional Music was established fourteen years ago as a permanent workshop on folk music, and promotes and enhances contemporary production of traditional music with Italian roots through the involvement of artists, record labels, journalists and cultural workers. It is organized by the Compagnia dei Curiosi Association in collaboration with the Tourism and Culture Department of the City of Loano, with the contribution of the Fondazione A. De Mari and with the patronage of the Liguria Region and ANCI. Artistic direction is by Jacopo Tomatis, with the collaboration of Ciro De Rosa, Enrico de Angelis and Annalisa Scarsellini.
The ranking of the Best Album Award 2017
1st place
Làntias (S'Ard Music) - Elena Ledda
2nd place
Canti, ballads and hypocondrie d'ammore (Squilibri) - Canio Loguercio and Alessandro D'Alessandro
3rd place
Canzoniere (Ponderosa) - Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino
4th place
U fujutu su nesci chi fa? (Urtovox) - Cesare Basile
Like a Tree in Winter (Visage Music) - Luisa Cottifogli
6th place
Cuttuni and lamé (Finisterre) - Eleonora Bordonaro
Pearls of the Apennines (Visage music) - Maurizio Geri
8th place
Beautiful a snake with golden spoils (Squilibri) - Marco Rovelli
9th place
And a rebellious thought in cor ci sta! Two Centuries of Italian History Sung (Nota Records)
Giovanna Marini / Choir Hymns and Songs of Struggle / Band of the Testaccio Folk Music School
10th place
40 gir 1977-2017 (Felmay) - Three Hammers.
The Award Jury
Maurizio Agamennone, Giovanni Alcaini, Ricky Barone, Marco Boccitto, Loris Bohm, Michele Bovi, Raffaello Carabini, Pietro Carfì, Giordano Casiraghi, Daniele Cestellini, Gianni Ciaccio, Aldo Coppola Neri, Valerio Corzani, Giandomenico Curi, Enrico de Angelis, Paolo De Bernardin, Flaviano De Luca, Ciro De Rosa, Paolo Del Ry, Enrico Deregibus, Giuseppe De Trizio, Salvatore Esposito, Antonio Fanelli, Gerardo Ferrara, Massimo Ferro, Guido Festinese, Flavia Gervasi, Guido Giazzi, Mario Giovannini, Jonathan Giustini, Ezio Guaitamacchi, Federico Guglielmi, Marco La Viola, Felice Liperi, Marco Lutzu, Ignazio Macchiarella, Giorgio Maimone, Maurizio Marino, Tiziano Menduto, Giorgio Meneghetti, Gaetano Menna, Marco Miconi, Beppe Montresor, Anna Nacci, Alessandro Nobis, Giancarlo Nostrini, Rosario Pantaleo, Riccardo Piaggio, Massimo Pirotta, Massimo Poggini, Piercarlo Poggio, Ezio Riberi, Alessandro Rosa, Roberto Sacchi, Vincenzo Santoro, Annalisa Scarsellini, Stefano Starace, Jacopo Tomatis, Federico Vacalebre, Gianluca Veltri, Antonio Vivaldi, Enrico Zagnagnoli, Paolo Zara, Giorgio Zito.{:}
