{:it}“A new Orpheus with his gaze turned as much to the past as to the future, he leads us with his voice and instruments into a new folk world inhabited by wonderful creatures and stories”: these are the reasons with which Raffaello Simeoni's “Orfeo incantastorie” (Finisterre) won the National Prize City of Loano for Italian Traditional Music awarded to the Best Album of 2018. A great author, interpreter and singer of the folk tradition of Lazio and Sabina, Simeoni was founder of Novalia, long with Ambrogio Sparagna in the Italian Popular Orchestra. The second most voted album was “Argento” by Riccardo Tesi and Banditaliana (Visage); in third place was “Palma de Sols” by Mauro Palmas (Squilibri).
Now in its 15th year, the Loano Prize is the most prestigious award for traditional music in Italy and is awarded annually to the best musical production in the folk sphere by a jury of more than fifty specialized journalists and scholars. From Monday, July 22 to Friday, July 26, the setting of the event-for the second year under the guidance of artistic director Jacopo Tomatis-will be, as always, the Ligurian town in the province of Savona. The full program of concerts, meetings and original productions will be announced soon.
The Young People's Prize for the best record under 35 with IMAIE contribution (Bando art. 7 2018 Musica Premi e Concorsi) went to “Biserta e altre storie” by Duo Bottasso with Simone Sims Longo (Visage), an ambitious project that brings together traditional Italian instruments and sounds with electronic music. The artistic direction and organization of the City of Loano Prize also awarded as usual the Lifetime Achievement Award and the Cultural Reality Award, respectively, to Piedmont's Tre Martelli and Erasmo Treglia's Finisterre label.
The City of Loano Prize for Italian Traditional Music was established fifteen 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 and with the contribution of Fondazione A. De Mari and IMAIE (Bando Art. 7 L. 93/92 - year 2018 Musica Premi e Concorsi). Artistic direction is by Jacopo Tomatis, with the collaboration of Ciro De Rosa, Enrico de Angelis and Annalisa Scarsellini.
Motivations
Best Album Award to the album Orfeo incantastorie (Finisterre) by Raffaello Simeoni
«Every day I search for a light, a shadow and weave these wandering hands of mine taking colors and melodies from the world, juxtaposing them with each other, mixing and composing the hues that are transformed into stories, sounds and songs, but also rocks, trees and fantastic animals»: this is how Raffaello Simeoni tells of his Orfeo incantastorie, a journey from Sabina to the world that builds and crosses bridges with other musical traditions, from Lazio folk to world music. Simeoni, a new Orpheus with his eyes turned as much to the past as to the future, leads us with his voice and instruments into a new folk world inhabited by wonderful creatures and stories.
Loano Youth Award to the record Biserta and Other Stories (Visage) by Duo Bottasso + Simone Sims Longo
It all started with a diatonic accordion and a violin, and with dance music from the Occitan valleys. Since then, the Bottasso brothers have grown up: they have studied, played with musicians from all over the world, learned new traditions, and extended the sound of their instruments in depth with electronics. Until they landed in Biserta, together with sound designer Simone Sims Longo. If this is tomorrow's folk music, we look forward to tomorrow.
Lifetime Achievement Award to Tre Martelli
Field research and re-proposal, progressive folk and jazz, the words of poets and the voices of “tradition,” the international stages of world music and country festivals... Celebrating forty years of history, the Alexandrians Tre Martelli - also through the association Tratabirata - continue to bring around the music of their Piedmont with consistency and style. Without falling into nostalgia, but restoring its liveliest soul; without locking themselves in the past, but passing the baton to the new generation: a mobile, fluid celebration that, in recounting a Piedmont that no longer exists, still knows how to speak to today's Italy.
Cultural Reality Award to Finisterre
Popular music is a matter of roots. Roots, however, are often mobile: they sink into water or air, fly, float and flourish in new and unexpected directions. Erasmo Treglia, who with his Finisterre has long investigated the repertoires of nomadism, in Italy and Europe, knows this well. Discs, festivals, seminars, reviews, from Ambrogio Sparagna to Acquaragia Drom, from BandAdriatica to Mimmo Epifani and Mario Incudine, up to the new generations with Dahlia: Finisterre over the years has told and taught the sounds of an “other” musical universe, on the edge of known lands. Because it is only from the end of the world - its mission statement reads - that «we can see the known world, and discover the sounds of what is to come.».
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