Musica Siciliana online concert Sunday/oggi 3PM (Eastern)/21:00 in Italia. Zoom. Gratis. Access at event at https://experiencesicily.com/sicilian-folk-music-concert/. I’ll be playing a tamburello (tambourine/frame drum) during today’s concert-lecture of traditional Sicilian folk music. Although my drum is from Palermo, it’s not as magical as the one I’m holding in this photo from summer 2019, when our group…
Tag: tamburello
Sending You Harmony And Joy
May harmony and joy greet you! Buon Natale! Merry Christmas! Ti mando armonia e gioia!
Drumming Up Business
Tamburello (drum) with medieval scene, outside a store in Catania
How You Play The Drum
This is Alfio Antico’s drum. Close up. He made it and carved it himself. In person, it is sturdy and heavy, so much so that only someone of his strength could play it. When we visited with him in the hills near where he grew up in Sicily, he talked about the Great Mother: Earth….
The Most Awesome Day: Taranta Sicily Fest
If I could dream up the most awesome day, this would be it: August 20 in Scicli, the The Taranta Sicily Fest: A Tarantella music and dance festival in Sicily!!!! And the headliner is one of my favorite Italian artists and the leader of the Taranta Power movement: Eugenio Bennato. I mean, seriously. My two…
Full Circle
Sieves, like the one shown, have been used for generations to aid the olive and almond harvests (just to name two examples of when it’s used) by straining dirt and other particles out from fruit that has fallen to the ground. When we see an antique sieve next to a tamburello, or Italian frame drum…
Ancient Mixology
In the end of the 5th century B.C., “The Lugano Painter,” or “Il Pittore di Lugano,” worked on many pieces that archaeologists have unearthed and attributed to him. This “calyx krater,” or urn, shows a bearded Dionysus with his thyrsus (staff topped with a pine cone), a bacchante (female follower of Dionysus (a.k.a., Bacchus) playing…
Ceramic Duo
Ceramic figurines with tambourine and guitar, Museo Etnografico Giuseppe Pitrè, Palermo.
It’s a Symbiotic Relationship
In the beginning of October, Ragusa celebrated the 20th annual “Ibla Buskers Festa di Artisti di Strada.” The Baroque city’s piazzas were full of musicians, circus performers, artists, and–probably most important, spectators. The Associazione Culturale Edrisi and ibla Buskers aims to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between performers and audience and the best street art in…
Alfio is Meraviglioso
Words cannot describe how emotional and engaging our visit with musician and artist Alfio Antico was this morning! We stayed at his home away from home, the agriturismo Borgo Nocchiara in the shadow of Mount Etna, where we spent a glorious three hours talking about music and the inspiration from Mother Earth.