Celebrity Selfie Alert! Well, sort of. While in Catania in January, I took the opportunity to take a photo with the composer Bellini at the (You guessed it.) Giardino Bellini. Catania and Sicily are very proud of their “son,” the opera composer, Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835). Bellini was born into a family of musicians in Catania…
Tag: musicista
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…
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…
Persian Drummer at Villa Palagonia
On the left is a print from Bonanni’s 18th-Century “Gabinetto Armonico,” a series of plates documenting antique musical instruments and their players. On the right is an 18th century statue from Bagheria’s Villa Palagonia that was created based on Bonanni’s plate Number 118. It’s a musician with tamburro Persiano or barrel drum from Persia that…
Let’s Dance!
Last September during our Experience Sicily tour, we had a private concert with a trio from Casteldaccia who performed traditional Sicilian folk songs for us on my cousin Evelina’s patio.
It’s All About that Bass Viol
Statue of bass viola da gamba player, Villa Palagonia, Bagheria. Listen live to my music duo Villa Palagonia on Chicago’s WFMT.com at 8PM CST tonight, 7 February 2015. It’s a one-hour concert of our brand of Sicilian inspired acoustic world folk music.
One of Italy’s Finest from Sicily
Singer-songwriter Carmen Consoli performed in her hometown of Catania on July 26, 2003. I photographed this poster in Taormina, earlier that summer.
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