Un settimana per fare il programma, ovvero da quando abbiamo avuto un minimo di certezza in più delle risorse a disposizione, per inciso il 14 Giugno (risorse che ad oggi risultano ancora incerte).
Tutto un anno alla ricerca di fondi e di sicurezze per un festival che in questi anni ha raggiunti grandi consensi, che vengono dal basso, dal pubblico, dai fotografi, dagli imprenditori (che cofinanziano il progetto), dai musicisti che partecipano…e mai come quest’anno abbiamo sentito il loro appoggio morale.
Un Festival il cui budget di spesa è formato da un mosaico di partecipazioni, dove gli sponsor privati arrivano a circa un terzo dell’intero ammontare dei finanziamenti.
E anche questa edizione un concerto in più a Lorenzana, che proprio da quest’anno entra a far parte della rete, portando a 23 il numero dei Comuni (ci scusiamo con Bientina e diamo appuntamento al prossimo anno), per il Festival musicale più esteso territorialmente e con più concerti della Toscana e, con buona probabilità, d’Italia.
Ma è riduttivo parlare solo di musica, perchè di fatto, il Musicastrada Festival, non è più soltanto una rassegna di concerti localizzati in luoghi dalle suggestive ambientazioni.
Il Festival è anche fotografia e video.
Giunto alla quinta edizione il concorso fotografico a tema “Fotografando la Musica”, conta di un numero di partecipanti in crescita esponenziale e si concretizza con una premiazione e ben tre momenti, e forse più, di esposizione delle foto vincitrici e segnalate (lo scorso anno sono arrivate 605 opere da tutta italia). Grazie a questa appendice del Festival siamo entrati in contatto con una realtà che in parte conoscevamo già ma che non immaginavano così diffusa: quella dei “fotoamatori”. Ciò ci ha permesso di selezionare alcuni di loro (soprattutto tra quelli che hanno partecipato al concorso ma non solo…) e di affidargli il difficile compito di realizzare il Foto Reportage del Festival. La sua realizzazione, l’allestimento, il pubblico, i luoghi, i paesagggi, i concerti, dopo i concerti etc., il tutto filtrato dal loro “occhio” fotografico, senza interferenze alcuna da parte della direzione del Festival.
I reportage vengono pubblicati nel nostro sito e proiettati durante le mostre fotografiche.
Video.
Per il terzo festival consecutivo e grazie alla professionalità e al talento di Marzia Maestri, che quest’anno dovrebbe essere affiancata da due stagisti provenienti dall’Università di Pisa, sarà realizzato il video-documentario “The Making of Musicastrada”…un vero e proprio video-racconto di questo lungo viaggio che rappresenta il festival: i luoghi, i personaggi, gli abitanti, il pubblico, gli artisti, il tutto legato dalle immagini in notturna dei concerti. Anteprime dei video del 2006 e 2007 sono visibili su You Tube. Video, che dovrebbe vedere la luce a breve.
Come avrete notato ricorre spesso il condizionale, perchè il suo uso è d’obbligo. Non vogliamo certo fare l’elenco dei problemi che ci sono nel nostro mestiere ma una cosa è certa: di passione soprattutto è fatto il nostro lavoro. Altrimenti sarebbe troppo difficile, anzi improbabile, anzi impossibile, andare avanti.
Ma vediamo il programma.
Come sempre e come nella nostra tradizione, cerchiamo di dare una visibilità il più ampia possibile delle musiche e quindi alle culture del mondo. Nel programma si trovano insieme dai musicisti Blues Americani, ai Griot Africani del Burkina-Faso, dai professionisti del jazz italiano ai musicisti che riprendono e rielaborano dalla tradizione delle musiche folcloristiche della nostra penisola, dal nord del Piemonte al Sud della Lucania.
Nazione, la nostra, ricchissima di varietà e generi musicali diversi, antichi e nuovi in apparente contrasto e perenne osmosi tra di loro.
E non solo. Un altro input si può evincere dal programma. Musicisti dall’Iran e dalla Turchia. Due nazioni che negli ultimi anni sono state raccontate dai nostri mezzi di informazione in modo parziale e a volte errato. Vediamoli questi musicisti e cerchiamo di capire qualcosa in più sulla loro cultura anche attraverso la loro musica.
Quest’anno il festival è dedicato agli amici e musicisti Nicola Colombini, Luca Mocci e Marco Sbrana
P.S.: un ringraziamento particolare a Marco Bonciolini, Massimo Cerri, tutti gli Sponsor, gli Assessori e i dirigenti della Rete Musicastrada, lo staff, tutti i musicisti, il pubblico…
Andrea Lupi e Davide Mancini
Durante alcune sere del Festival sarà possibile vedere in anteprima il video-documentario “The making of Musicastrada 2007” realizzato da Marzia Maestri
IL PROGRAMMA DEI CONCERTI
Gianni Cazzola, Mattia Cigalini, Gianluca di Ienno (ITA)
Cazzola, veteran and pure interpreter of the jazz drums in Italy, comes back after a few years to remember us that he is “honorary citizen” of Montopoli and for which reason he has deserved this recognition. He has a real nose to recognize the true talents (considering that he has played with so many great jazzmen) proposes a dynamic trio with two very young musicians of interest. A match between experience and freshness. A beautiful way to start this festival.
Martinicca Boison (ITA)
…folk… elegant… just two words to explain both their style and their music. The “Martinicca Boison” play with party-going joy, even if something or someone seems to want them to distract. Their sounds accompany the listener in bright atmospheres and rhythmic before, then in more suffuse atmospheres, nighttime and intimate and they darken as hours and meditations go by, sometimes heavy, sometimes light…
Lynn Drury feat. Roberto Luti (USA ITA)
New Orleans-based singer songwriter Lynn Drury’s powerful wail and sultry singing have been compared to such performers as Bonnie Raitt, Janis Joplin and even Norah Jones. But this Mississippi girl is making her own name for herself, belting out a breath of fresh air into the New Orleans music scene and beyond and winning over fans with a style all her own. Her music blends the funky sounds of New Orleans with the countrified roots of her rural upbringing, creating a sound that escapes easy classification. She plays with Roberto Luti, a guitarist from Livorno who has been living in New Orleans for many years.
Brian Templeton (USA)
Appeared in the Boston’s blues scene in 1989, and till 1999 leader of the famous band Radio Kings, Brian Templeton built his own reputation thanks to his powerful voice, his fantastic harp playing and a his great composition. Brian Templeton is one of the most talented vocalist to come along in quite a while. His combination of power and conviction along with unerring pitch and swingin and flexible sense of time and his dinamic stage presence makes his permorfances a “must see” live.
Djeli-Kan (BF)
From Burkina Faso the ancient musical tradition and fiction of the Griots. A thrilling and involving show made of songs, music, percussions and dances, creating melodies and vibrations that touch listeners’s soul, succeeding in communicating with the public despite the texts of the songs are often in an unknown language. The Griots are storytellers, educators, the historical memory and moral reference of the community. They represent the attachment to their own roots and the desire to talk to the world.
Eric Steckel and Craig Tatcher Band (USA)
“Spirited and soulful guitar oriented blues”… Music has shaped Eric’s life since the day he was born. With a feeling and natural ability that could not be explained for someone so young (17 years old), Eric delivered a Freddie-BB-Albert King influenced performance with an intensity and skill that belied his youth. In November of 2003 the Eric and his band appeared at the Sarasota Blues Festival where Eric’s powerful set and cameo appearances became the talk of the day. Before the night was over Eric was introduced by John Mayall as the youngest person ever on stage with the Bluesbreakers…
Carla Marciano Quartet (ITA)
Carla Marciano, saxophonist and composer from Salerno, is considered among the best new talents of the international jazz, appreciated both for the great passion and instinct, for his unique sound and the interpretative vein. With the precious collaboration of a quartet by now stable from years, the project confirms the intention to develop a coherent musical speaking and with a precise identity, living on the alternation among moments from the involving passionate position and others more reflexive.
R.J. Mischo (USA)
The career of RJ.Mischo starts more than 20 years ago in Minneapolis, working with the great local blues scene legends such as Muddy Waters, Mojo Buford (his mentor), Sonny Rogers, Percy Strothers and Milwaukee Slim. After a short while his own band has been regarded as one of the best band of the State and in 1996 he won the Minnesota Music Academy award as best harp player. R.J. has the rare gift of the immediateness an is, without doubt, one of the more’ rated master of his instrument. He loves the blues from the fifties that he proposes in a hot show.
Gruppo Spontaneo Trallalero (ITA)
“The Trallalero shall not disappear! I hope that every component of the Spontaneous Group gives his/her own seed so that to create one “genetic bank of the trallalero” because it is an extraordinary and spectacular tradition…! And I am convinced that in fifty years we will still speak of it!” (Beppe Grillo) The “trallalero” it is one of the most suggestive popular melodious expression. It represents a style of vocal imitation of instrumental rhythmics that has his place of great development in the urban area in Genoa…
Ensemble Avinar (IR ITA)
The ensemble “Avinar” is born in Iran in 2001 for initiative of Arash Yari. With the arrival in Italy of Arash and of his sister Eliza, virtuous of the santur, the ensemble has widened its repertoire inserting songs composed by the same Arash and, also having as base a repertoire of iranian sufi, has developed then a genre that goes from Turkish and Sicilian music to the medieval and ethnic melodies. The Avinars communicate a message of internal and deep love, a song of peace and tolerance. Arash and Eliza Yari belong to the orchestra of Porta Palazzo, multiethnic ensemble born in Turin in the 2004…
Claudia Bombardella Trio (ITA)
Polistrumentist and singer, perform in an original way the essence of the tradition, proposing it with new sounds and creative ideas. Rare figure of front woman in the new Italian acoustic music, Claudia is the winner of the ninth Prize “Teresa Viarengo” (2008), reserved to Italian artists dovote to the interpretation of traditional and ethnic music.
Andy Gravish and Daniele Gorgone Trio (USA ITA)
He has been professionally playing since he was 12 years old, in Pennsylvania clubs and pubs. He won a scholarship at Berklee College Of Music in Boston, where he graduated. After that he was called by the big band of the ‘great’ drummer Buddy Rich, where he played trumpet jazz. With this band he also played with, among the others, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Sarah Vaughn. After this experience he started to play and record with the orchestra of Artie Shaw. He played in Europe, Japan, Chile, Brazil… He participated to many recordings, from big band to small group, jazz, as well as commercial recordings and jingles.
Bobo Rondelli (ITA)
Bobo Rondelli is hardly representable among the lines of a biography. The simple temporal scanning of the events doesn’t probably succeed in making the idea of his strange character, always in the middle between the sociable and the distrustful, surely always pure, extending to shun recognitions and formal or academic tributes but also always sick of that healthy egocentrism of a show-stealer, a germ that never rests, especially when, in a theater as in an inn, he feels comfortable with the right people, as he loves to call them.
Giulia Millanta (ITA)
Julia has begun to sing and play guitar very young. Her “nomadic soul” and her curiosity took her to travel, to know, to meet, to listen… all this has flowed then in the demand to write songs. Songs that today are in the CD “Julia and the Dizzyness after the Alpha_decay” (with Giacomo Morandi and Alberto Tucci alias “The Dizzyness”), an album made of nighttime tones, crepuscular and intimate atmospheres…
Vick Frida (ITA)
With two recordings with prestigious labels (Sony and EMI), after having toured Italy, in festivals like Musicultura, and after the success of critics and public gathered in appearances at The Place, a famous club in Rome, Vick Frida make their stage in Pontedera to present CINE_POP, released in May 2008. Their show will reflect the suggestions of this work in a concert that will alternates moments of pure rock to romantic and melancholic ballads till dance/house, all filtered and refined through their unique artistic personality.
Perhaps the stereotypical Chicago bluesman, this big bellowing fellow (and bassist, too) is one of the city’s busiest performers. A mainstay of the Buddy Guy/Junior Wells bands of the ‘70s, you can currently catch him with his band. Says the Chicago Reader, though he “has always sounded to me as if he’d rather be playing funk than blues… he’s a solid craftsman whose tendency to overplay is tempered by a solid rhythmic sense and an energetic attack.”
Z-Star (ENG)
“The English singer songwriter Z-star is amazing”…that’s what Time Out writes about her…. Everything is tied up to her great energy and the special relationship that she has with the public due to an innate dowry of her young talent. Her first acoustic album “Who Loves Lives” was published by Virgin-Emi receiving a great success and reaching the 26th position in the Italian top-charts. The music of Z Star has been used inside fortunate television series like Ugly Betty, CSI, Entourage…
Musicanti del Piccolo Borgo (ITA)
The Musicanti del Piccolo Borgo can be considered an historical band in the Italian folk revival. They was formed in the middle of the 70s, with the aim of collecting and re-interpreting the heritage of the folk music tradition from central-southern Italy. The Musicanti have carried out field research, particularly in the regions Molise and Lazio, which has produced a vast documentation on the traditional musical repertoire. These initial campaigns of ethno musical recordings have later transformed into a more general contact with peasant culture, and therefore into a deeper knowledge not only of the examples, but also of the meanings of musical expression within that culture and the ways in which it is articulated.
Veronica Sbergia and the Red Wine Serenaders (ITA)
Veronica has always been singing, since she was a child… The versatility of her voice has brought her to sing everything… but is in the blues that she finds her real talent, also thanks to the collaboration with Max De Bernardi. The sound of the band passes from the blues to ragtime, from New Orleans jazz to the hypnotic rhythms of the jug bands. The use of non-conventional musical instruments (like ukulele, kazoo, washboard) together with double-bass, harmonica, acoustic guitar, banjo and mandolin will transport you back in the time… till Mississippi and Louisiana in the 20s.
Washboard Chaz blues trio (USA)
His talents extend from washboard, congas and other hand percussion, drum kit, lead and background vocals, to songwriting and arranging. Chaz’s talents are becoming synonymous with New Orleans and he was recently featured in a 2005 New Orleans commercial. Chaz’s musical talents have been featured on over 70 recordings, including John Hammond’s 1998 Grammy nominated “Long as I have You”.
Mario Poletti quartetto (ITA)
The quartet, propose original instrumental songs inspired by patrimony of european folk music, with particular attention to the area of the western Alps. In their music you can hear mediterranean and levantine suggestions, improvisations of jazz derivation and afro-american rhythms that cohabit with ancient melodies, refined arrangements and atmospheres of country parties that, together with the “color” of the used tools, define a modern-ancient sound…
Ed Gerhard (USA)
With inspirations that go from Andrés Segovia to Mississippi John Hurt, Ed has created his own “ guitar-voice”, recognized and appreciated all over the world. The depth of his compositions can excite a listener with a single note. Scott Alarik of the Boston Globe explains all this very well when he writes: “Gerhard doesn’t write instrumental tunes. He writes songs that only a guitar can sing.”
Andy J.Forest band (USA)
He played with artists of the caliber of B.B. King, Otis Rush, Willy De Ville, Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Taj Mahal and Edoardo Bennato, Eugenio Finardi, Zucchero and Guccini have profited of his solos… Prestigious names, notable credential in the curriculum of this artist: harp, singer, guitarist, songwriter, writer and painter! His concerts are occasion of fun and joy and his music bewitch every type of spectator…
The di Maggio Connection (ITA)
Marco Di Maggio, leader and founder of the band, have succeeded in earning him the admiration of the more prestigious american and european magazines without never expiring in fallacious operations of revival, proposing an overwhelming crossover of styles like: rockabilly, surf, country, blues & swing. With his instrumental virtuosities, he succeeds to mediate between this style lovers and the scepticals especially thanks to a versatile, bright and involving show.
Carlo Maver quartet (ITA)
Carlo Maver is a flutist, bandoneonist and composer from Bologna but also traveller (solitary) in exotic and remote countries among which Kurdistan, Mali, the desert of the Sahara, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Experiences of life that become authentic sources of creative inspiration for his music. In the September of the 2002 moved to Argentina, where he remains six months improving the study of Bandoneon under the guide of the great Argentinian Teacher Dino Saluzzi. His music belong to the files RAI and Mediaset and are often used as musical comments of telecasts.
Bellitamburi (ITA)
Interpreters of the more ancient tradition of Lucania and particularly skilled in the contamination among ancient and modern sonority, Belli Tamburi are characterized for the use of hand-made tools; from boxes of plate to cans. The original compositions of the ensemble are inspired by the cultural context of a famous (particularly for music) village: Tricarico. Place that often reappears in the hard and hot style of the lyric, of rythm and in the simple but obsessive structures but endowed with melodies and pressing rhythms, that perfume of Arabic and Saracen cultures.
Franco Morone e Raffaella Luna (ITA)
Like all the precious and hidden things, Raffaella Luna’s voice has not as yet been discovered by the general public but, if you listen at her for the first time, you will have the feeling to be in front of a genuine talent. Along with one of the greatest guitar acoustic representative into the international scene, Franco Morone, they propose songs which are emotionally and historically representing of a generation. A repertoire where all of the tunes are arranged by Franco’s personal touch in an unmistakable sound, alongwith the sweet and passionate Raffaella’s voice merging altogether in a suggestive music of the spheres.
Dem Trio (TR)
Formed by polistrumentists, Okan Murat Öztürk, Murat Salim Tokaç and Cenk Güray, the Dem Trio proposes a deep look on the fundamental aspects of the Turkish music. The structure of every piece undergoes to particular rules of composition, named “makan”, and furnish the base to produce themes and melodies. The part of the real invention is submitted to the improvisations (taksim). Thanks to the discoveries of the Dem Trio we can enter in relationship with the ancient Ottoman culture…
Eileen Rose band (USA)
Listen to the american music is not easy by these times… few artists come to Italy. Eileen Rose acclaimed from the criticism arrives from Boston with her band. For her the most hazardous comparisons are wasted, from Ani di Franco to Lucinda Williams. Reality, as usual, is different. Eileen Rose is not the new country-rock-pop star, as someone would have wanted, she is simply herself, with her influences and a powerful band that support this new, soulfull..