Experience Sicily

Category: Music

  • Bellini is Tops

    Catania and Sicily are very proud of their “son,” the opera composer, Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) featured here in Catania’s center. Bellini was born into a family of musicians in Catania and left Sicily at 18 years old to study at the conservatory in Naples. He lived abroad for the rest of his virtuosic life, dying…

  • Shoes and Song

    The Museo Etno-Antropologico Annalisa Buccellato in Castellammare del Gulfo possesses a magnificent exhibit of items from past peasant-life in western Sicily. I can’t say enough about the glimpses it gives us into “the old days.” For example, this guitar, which of course, as a musician, attracted my attention. I’ll transcribe for you the explanation of…

  • Baroque Dancing

    More fantastic statues from Bagheria’s Villa Palagonia. I love the one at the top of the arch. He looks like he’s dancing the tarantella! (Photo Credit: Experience Sicily’s Filippo Buttitta). On Friday, April 1 at 7:30PM, in Teaneck, NJ, USA at Classic Quiche Cafe, my music ensemble Villa Palagonia will be sharing a Sicily-inspired evening…

  • Villa Palagonia Inspires Rhythms & Roots

    Villa Palagonia is a Baroque villa located in Bagheria, a town in Sicily, Italy near Palermo. The villa was built to be the country home of the fifth Prince of Palagonia, a baron under the realm of the King of Spain. In 1749, Ferdinando Gravina, the seventh Prince of Palagonia, commissioned over 600 statues of…

  • The Revelrous LassatilAbballari

    If you are in the New York City area, you’ve got a fabulous opportunity on Thursday night to hear LassatilAbballari, a fantastic folk music group from Palermo, Sicily (pictured). They’ll be joining New York’s ambassador of Sicilian folk music Michela Musolino and her group, Rosa Tatuata, for their now, second annual La Primavera Vinni (Spring…

  • A Signature Dish: Pasta alla Norma

    Maccheroncini alla Norma (Maccheroni pasta, in this case, bucatini, with tomato sauce, eggplant, and grated ricotta salata cheese on top) is a classic Sicilian recipe. There are many theories about why it’s named “alla Norma,” the most convincing being that the name pays homage to Vincenzo Bellini’s opera, Norma. Bellini (1801-1835) was born in Catania,…

  • Sicily at University of Pennsylvania

    Yesterday and today I’m “in Sicily” … yet in Philadelphia, PA at University of Pennsylvania, discussing the complexities of this land we love with scholars from around the globe.

  • One Last Smile

    Colorful, illuminated floats from the Carnevale parade at Acireale. (Photo Credit: Experience Sicily’s Evelina Buttitta Rubino)

  • Marranzano: Sicily’s Mouth Harp

    Known as a marranzano or marranzanu in Sicily, this musical instrument is played throughout the world. It goes by other names such as jew’s harp, jaw harp, mouth harp. Marranzano is played using breath, one’s oral cavity (mouth, teeth, lips, jaw), and a finger to pluck the reed that sits within the frame. The reed,…