By
THIRSTY
Canzoniere
Grecanico Salentino (CGS) is one of Italy’s
leading traditional music ensembles. Founded in 1975 to revive and
celebrate the music and dance of the Salento, a territory of the Puglia region
of southern Italy (the heel of the boot), the band's roots are in the ancient pizzica tarantata, a
powerfully rhythmic music that originally was played to heal salentini,
peasants and laborers, and mainly women, who suffered from ills believed to
have been caused by tarantula bites.
In 2007, CGS co-founder Daniele Durante passed the
leadership of CGS to his son Mauro, a conservatory-trained violinist,
percussionist, and devoted student of Salentine traditional music. At 26, Mauro
served as the musical assistant of Ludovico Einaudi, a prominent composer and pianist
from Turin, when Einaudi was the concert master for La Notte della Taranta, the
now world-famous music festival that has been held in the Salento every year
since 1998 and which draws hundreds of thousands of fans from Italy and beyond.
Under Mauro's leadership, CGS has recorded four albums, Focu d'amore (2010),
Pizzica Indiavolata (2013), Quaranta (2015) and Canzoniere
(2017).
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Thirsty Magazine is pleased to present one of the most interesting
and original protest videos we have seen in a great long time. It sets into sharp focus the
crossroad where tradition meets progress.