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Rating: Swept by the collective craze for pizzica and the pride generated by the media exposure of the rediscovery of the local tradition of my beloved Puglia, I went to attend this final event of a series of concerts that combine the Salentine musical tradition with world music.
This year the artistic direction was entrusted to Stewart Copeland, former drummer of the Police.
Due to a not exactly brilliant traffic management, I missed both Uccio Aloisi's concert, the Leccese Compay Segundo, which would have allowed me to hear pizzica in a more traditional setup, and a project curated by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti.
Thus, I only manage to see the main concert in which an ensemble of about 30 musicians performs, including the best of Salentine artists, alongside the voices of Raiz from Almamegretta, Teresa De Sio, and Nabil from Radiodervish. On stage, I happily notice that Copeland himself is also playing, making his presence much more than just a promotional sticker.
What strikes me is the scale of the event; in the square of Melpignano in front of the splendid baroque convent, there is a huge crowd, and the stage is set for a major event.
Musically, we are in full world music territory: the popular rhythms, to which Copeland gives a fusion-key modernization, show Arabic influences but also call to mind Indian bhangra.
In any case, the tribal element of the tambourines' sound, the obsessive singing, and the hypnotic melodies dominate every reinterpretation of the traditional songs, averting the potential boredom effect of the operation.
But the real surprise of the evening is undoubtedly the incredible performance of the Salentine singers, protagonists of a chilling vocal-only execution.
The audience's response is overwhelming, perhaps because popular dance has suddenly become trendy...
The concert ends late in the night, truthfully not everything worked perfectly, and the turns towards fusion sometimes appeared a bit forced, but the grand party effect and the satisfaction of seeing initiatives of this magnitude realized here cover any possible blunders.
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