PRESS RELEASE (17/07/2014)
From July 20 to 25, a Loano, will turn the spotlight on the City of Loano National Award for Italian Traditional Music, which this year celebrates 10 years of commitment to the promotion and enhancement of the contemporary production Of traditional music with Italian roots.
A source of pride is the recognition given to this project over the past eight years by the highest office of the state with the awarding of the Medal of the President of the Italian Republic, which was awarded again this year.
For six days, the city will host concerti, stage, square dance, photo exhibition and meetings with musicians and journalists. The festival evenings will also see the presentation of the Best Album Award 2013 to Rita Botto and Band of Avola, the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award a Peppe Barra and the Cultural Reality Award 2014 to the Genoese ethnomusicologist and researcher Mauro Balma.
The concerts on the waterfront and in the square, as well as the afternoon meetings, will recount the most significant “voices” of traditional musical culture, tracing Italy from the South to the North, with a close look at the “voice” of women.
Kicking off the festival will be the July 20 The internship dedicated to Sicilian dance. Margherita Badalà will offer the basic elements of “ballettu,” a vibrant dance of rhythmicity with agro-pastoral origins. The internship will continue on July 21 and will close with a dance party, which will take place at 21.30 in Rocca Square. The evening will weave together sounds and dances from the Trinacria conquers of the’Occitania. Guests of the evening will be the Sicilian musical group Unavantaluna and the Piedmontese one Senhal.
The performances on the waterfront, at the 9:30 pm, will kick off the July 22 With a great “voice” of Italian popular culture, Peppe Barra, who will celebrate at Loano his 70 years old (born July 24, 1944) by withdrawing the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award. Peppe Barra will be the protagonist of a musical journey that will touch on the most important stages of his artistic career, collecting and returning what he has most metabolized in terms of emotions and content.
The July 23, “the voice” will become a tale, the one handed down by Piedmontese oral tradition, collected by researchers Costantino Nigra, Leone Sinigaglia and Giuseppe Ferraro and reinterpreted by the musical group Din Dùn.
The July 24, resounding on the Loano waterfront will be the mandola by Mimmo Epifani, an internationally renowned musician, who, with the “barbershop” technique, will revive the echoes of the barbershop salon in San Vito dei Normanni (Brindisi), where Maestro Costantino, a barber and musician, taught to play the mandola.
The festival will close, on July 25 with the production-event “Singing the Voice - Folk and women's singing, from North to South”which will bring together on the stage of the’Prince's Garden Summer Arena some of the most significant interpreters of the Italian folk tradition: Paola Lombardo, Le Balentes, Monica Pinto with Spakka Neapolis 55, Rita Botto with Banda di Avola.
The festival program will be enriched, again this year, by the afternoon initiative (hrs. 18.30 - Nassiriya Fallen Gardens) the “Prize Meet...”, organized in collaboration with labels, artists, journalists and cultural workers who will be at Loano to promote their projects.
The July 21 Silvio Peron will present his latest album “Eschandihà de vita - Stories of characters from the Occitan Valleys in Piedmont.” The meeting will be conducted by Cyrus De Rosa.
The July 22 will take place the first of two appointments dedicated to the theme of “voice” declined in the feminine. The title of the meeting is “Is tradition a woman? Journey in women's folk singing, between north and south.” and will feature in the story the journalist Cyrus De Rosa and the interpreter Eleonora Bordonaro, with the conduction of John Vignola.
The award will meet the July 23 Mimmo Cavallaro,interpreter of the Calabrian musical tradition, who will present his double album “Sacro et Profano” (2014, CNI). Finally, the July 24, Enrico de Angelis e John Vignola will take the audience back to the female universe between “The Voices of Cities” represented by Milly, Laura Betti, Gabriella Ferri and others.
July 20 to August 20, On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the festival, the exhibition will be set up “10 Years of Traditional Music, a photographic trail that will wind along the city streets. Shots recalling the most significant moments experienced in different corners of the city were taken by photographers Silvio Massolo e Martin Cervelli.
The City of Loano Award, under theartistic direction of music journalist John Vignola, is organized by the’Society of the Curious Association in collaboration with the’Department of Tourism and Culture of the City of Loano, with contributions from the Liguria Region, A. Foundation De Mari and the sponsorship of the Savona Province, of the’ANCI and the MEI.
The event is organized with the contribution and collaboration of Double J Ltd. Supermarket Management, Grand Hotel Garden Lido and Excelsior Hotel, Technique.
