Agrigento’s annual Sagra del Mandorlo in Fiore going on this week attracts groups from all over the globe, who display their traditional costumes along with exhibiting their culture’s beloved traditional music through performances and processions through town. Photographed in 2016 at the Festival by my cousin Filippo Buttitta, these two young men are playing the…
Tag: friscalettu
Friscalettu: Sicily’s Reed Flute
Sicilian music is punctuated with the sounds of the friscalettu or reed flute, pictured. Traditional tarantellas (folk dances) are colored with motives from this instrument, often hand carved by the player using the wood from fig or olive trees or the oleander shrub. Like the harmonica, a friscalettu (friscaletto, in Italian language versus Sicilian) player…
Dancing in the Street
Musicians and dancers from Santa Flavia’s Gruppo Folk Soluntum perform traditional Sicilian folks songs–here on tamburello (frame drum/tambourine), friscalettu (reed flute), and fisarmonica (accordion)–for a crowd of onlookers in Porticello.