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Al Bano Carrisi will be the narrator of La Notte della Taranta 2021.

The Apulian singer will accompany the viewers of Rai 1, on 4 September at 23:15, on the musical journey of the Melpignano Concert.

In dialogue with the concert masters Enrico Melozzi and Madame, he will help the audience to discover the ancestral power of the pizzica and the beauty of Apulia.

Al Bano will conduct the programme, which will be held in the square of the former Augustinian Convent on 28 August, and will not fail to amaze with his voice, interpreting a song in the Cellino San Marco's dialect.  

It is a show that promises to be full of surprises and important messages entrusted to the writing of the Popular Orchestra, which in recent months has been working on the introduction of contemporary verses into traditional songs that photograph the current situation in Salento.

Dance will play a major role. Choreographer Thomas Signorelli, together with Annalisa Surace's IJO brand, has created the performance by Madame, who will dance the pizzica together with the Taranta Ballet Corps. Yesterday, during the Soleto Festival, Madame surprisingly took the stage with Enrico Melozzi, and to the rhythm of the tambourine began to dance with the Taranta dancers on the song Fuecu.

The Concertone will open with the Pizzica della Liberazione written by maestro Enrico Melozzi to wish the resumption of all cultural activities in the presence of the public. In Melpignano, due to the health emergency, one thousand people from all over Italy will be attending, who have booked access through the platform activated by the Foundation.

Super guests of the final concert in Melpignano (LE), on 28 August, the trio IL VOLO.

Already backstage guests in 2018, when they had the opportunity to share behind the scenes the emotions of the long night dedicated to the pizzica and the meeting of cultures, Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble, return to Salento in Melpignano this time to perform on the stage of Melpignano's Concertone, at the Notte della Taranta, one of the best known and most appreciated popular music events in Italy and Europe.

An exciting challenge for the artists of IL VOLO, who will sing the anthem of the Taranta, Calinitta, in Greek, the minority language of the Hellenophone area of Salento.

Ambassadors of "bel canto" and Italian music in the world, Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca have worked closely with maestro Enrico Melozzi who, as announced, will present a Taranta in a rock key. There will be no shortage of surprises with Madame, the young concert master, who will use her fluid and poetic language to perform some traditional pieces.

The Melpignano Concert will be broadcast on 4 September for the first time by RAI 1 at 11.15 pm.

With the Popular Orchestra of La Notte della Taranta, on the stage of Melpignano on August 28 there will also be the Orchestra Notturna clandestina, a symphonic orchestra founded by Enrico Melozzi, in 2016. The music of the traditional Salento will meet the melodies of classical music. Enrico Melozzi, concert master, together with Madame, of the 24th edition of the Melpignano concert, in fact promised: "it will be a taranta rock. Salento's popular music has a sacredness like classical music". Hence the meeting and the mixture of musicians was a natural path to follow to enrich the long night of Melpignano that will be broadcasted for the first time by Rai 1 on September 4 at 23.15.

Not only the Orchestra conducted by Melozzi in Melpignano in the most awaited night of the Apulian summer together with the musicians of the resident Orchestra.  In fact, there will be important additions to enrich the cast of artists and make the Melozzi-Madame taranta even more rock. Guests of the Popular Orchestra La Notte della Taranta will be:
Giovanni Boscariol, Alberto Barsi, Alessandro Lunedì and Carmelo Maria Colajanni.

Giovanni Boscariol keyboardist, composer, arranger, producer, is a musician of great importance of the Italian music scene; keyboard, fisa and programming in several editions of the Sanremo Festival, he has joined Ramazzotti, Patty Pravo, Cremonini in their tours. Alberto Barsi and Alessandro Lunedì, respectively first and second electric guitar at the Concertone, will be the artists who with their instruments will contribute to give a rock imprint to La Notte della Taranta 2021. Among the guests there will also be Carmelo Maria Colajanni, a member of the Orchestra Notturna Clandestina (clarinet), who on this occasion will play ethnic winds. A remodulation wanted to contribute to the contamination and the meeting between different sounds and melodies with a strong reference to the Mediterranean tradition.

The Orchestra Notturna Clandestina is an independent symphony orchestra, founded by Enrico Melozzi in 2016, which will perform in Melpignano with a staff of 38 elements, with the aim of transmitting the universal values of classical music to as many people as possible, taking into particular consideration young people and less affluent audiences. Formed by musicians convinced that the objectives of classical music are absolutely popular and not elitist.

The Orchestra Notturna Clandestina, whose name is inspired by the Clandestine Theatre of Kantor (Polish playwright who decided to found this kind of theater during Nazism, which prohibited free cultural manifestations), has recorded for major labels such as DECCA (alongside Giovanni Sollima, godfather and co-founder of the orchestra), and has been invited to participate in prestigious festivals such as Riccardo Muti's Ravenna Festival, the D'Annunziano Festival, the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, the "Musica a Palazzo Venezia" Festival in Rome, the Concerts of the Quirinale at the Cappella Paolina broadcast live on Radio3, the Macerata Opera Festival at the Sferisterio, and many others, thus becoming one of the reference points of national classical music. In the summer of 2020 it was the protagonist on RAI5 of a documentary produced by RAI CULTURA, entitled "Sinfonie di Rinascita" in which it appears alongside famous orchestras and historical institutions on the national and international scene (Orchestra Filarmonica di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Cherubini, Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera), in a focus on music after the lockdown and the importance of culture in such a difficult period as the one we are living today.

The Orchestra includes in its staff also very young musicians under 20 and under 30, flanked by the major professionals of the capital and boasts an important multi-ethnic vein, as there are young musicians from various parts of the world (Brazil, Argentina, Iran, Russia, Spain, Poland, Puerto Rico, Colombia).  This multi-ethnicity is fundamental in the work of research of a totally new sound that is in fact immediately usable by a varied audience: the highest and refined music of the classical repertoire reaches the most heterogeneous spectators, creating in fact a sort of cultural community composed by musicians and listeners, in constant development and exponential growth. In May 2021, the orchestra expands with the foundation of a second Orchestra Notturna Clandestina based in Milan, composed of musicians who gravitate to the Milanese hinterland, who share the same founding principles of the Roman group, becoming in fact the first widespread orchestra in Italy.

It will be IJO'design, an Apulian brand emblem of sustainable luxury fashion, to dress the artists on the stage of La Notte della Taranta 2021 Concert, on August 28 in Melpignano.

The festival, now in its twenty-fourth edition, is aired this year, for the first time, on RAI1, September 4 at 23 P.M.  IJO'design clothes will help to mark the turning point announced by the artistic direction of the festival, visually recounting the theme of the value of freedom, not only through the unique and exclusive design, but especially through the story that since 2001 the brand lets tell the fabric, the undisputed star of the collections, the result of work on ancient looms, skillfully recovered in their tradition and launched in a challenge of Sense and Style.
On the Concertone's stage we find the free Voice of the italian emblem of the italian music, Generation Z's symbol, Madame, Concert Master of this edition. The same role will take place by Enrico Melozzi, director of orchestra who hit the jackpot on Sanremo with the band Maneskin.

To move the threads of the dance will instead be Thomas Signorelli, choreographer of high fame, known for his choreography thanks to Mahmood at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019, Elodie, Dolce e Gabbana, Italia's Got talent and The Voice. Free, rock, fluid. A bit like the philosophy, fashion and art that the brand, pioneer since 2001 of slow fashion, gives us through the story of a past of high quality craftsmanship, hands, threads and patience, projecting itself towards avant-garde forms and styles, as the engine of sustainable fashion Made in Italy. Twenty years of hand weaving, poised between tradition and innovation, find new life, giving the garments an adding value thanks to the history they contain. Quality, Design and Sustainability have always moved the brand in every phase of the production chain, from the choice of "natural and certified" fibers, to the recovery of the ancient art of Apulian weaving, based on the hand production of all collections on traditional olive wood looms.

"We feel deeply ours the theme of this edition" - says Annalisa Surace, founder and designer of the brand - "since the birth of IJO'design, in 2001, our project weaves fluid and moving plots between the historical beauty of tradition and the fascinating power of innovation. Therefore, we are thrilled to be working for the 2021 concert, as rock, free and fluid as our brand."

After Meltin Pot, Silente, Gaudiomonte and, last year, the international fashion brand Dior, the Foundation returns to choose the quality of production born in Salento that enhances the ancient art of Apulian weaving. "With IJO' Design, we started a collaboration, explains Massimo Manera President of the Notte della Taranta Foundation, starting from the theme of 2021 "the value of freedom" and dialoguing with choreographer and concert masters on the message that also the brand's creations will convey to the audience. The Puglia of excellence will once again be the protagonist on RAI 1". 

Thomas Signorelli is the choreographer of the twenty-fourth edition of the Concertone La Notte della Taranta on august 28, 2021.

Thomas Signorelli is an Italian television and theater choreographer who has been working in the entertainment world for many years. He is a modern-contemporary teacher and collaborates with some of the most important Italian and European dance centers.

In his career, Signorelli has been choreographer in programs such as Italia's Got Talent, The Voice Of Italy, Sanremo, Telethon, Eurovision Song Contest, And Then There Is Cattelan, The Voice Senior. In the world of fashion, he collaborates with Dolce & Gabbana, Armani and Valentino. Signorelli has signed Mahmood's choreography for Eurovision, Elodie in Sanremo 2020 and Malika Ayane.

In the last period he was guest choreographer on the program Amici and also of the program "A single hour I would like to have you"  by Enrico Brignano.

 

Thomas Signorelli will take his charge on La Notte della Taranta's stage. "Energy is what holds a group together, what makes a dance troupe a single center in which individualities are at the service of others. This is dance, pure energy. Going back to choreographing for an audience, and not just for a TV studio, makes me enormously happy. La Notte de la Taranta, explains Signorelli, is one of my dreams come true. I have already had the opportunity to speak with the concert masters, Enrico Melozzi and Madame, and I find in them the same power I want to bring to the stage. It will be an exciting Taranta with engaging choreographies ”. Signorelli, who in these days met the Corps de Ballet of the Taranta composed of Serena Pellegrino, Mihaela Coluccia, Lucia Scarabino, Cristina Frassanito, Stefano Campagna, Andrea Caracuta, Fabrizio Nigro, Marco Martano, Mattia Politi, will return to Salento on August 16th, for the final rehearsals in view of the Concertone scheduled for August 28 in Melpignano.
 

The choreographer of the 24th edition of La Notte della Taranta was announced last night, during the first stage of the traveling festival which, from an established tradition, opens in Corigliano d’Otranto. After the pizzica workshop, which took place at the Flying Castle of the Grica town, the evening was concentrated in Piazza Vittoria. Started with the performance of Pizzica in Scena, it saw the dancers of La Notte della Taranta as protagonists. Right after the announcement of the new choreographer, the president of  La Notte della Taranta Foundation Massimo Manera, the mayor of Corigliano d’Otranto Dina Manti and the artistic director of the traveling festival Luigi Chiriatti have spoken.

The president of the Manera Foundation underlined how in this particular period, many efforts have been put in place to overcome the difficulties of the moment, in order to garantee a festival in total safety. On the other hand, Manera continued, it was important to send a message of hope, to restart the complex organizational machine behind a festival and an event of this type, because the workers, the artists must be supported in order to kick-start a circuit that has always been a flagship of our country. On the same wavelength is the message of Dina Manti, the first citizen of Corigliano, who welcomed the spectators of the crowded Piazza Vittoria. The artistic director of the traveling Festival Luigi Chiriatti illustrated some peculiarities of this festival in which traditional music meets the words of culture. Like Sternatia's appointment with Aldo Cazzullo, in "A riveder le stelle", a novel about the Divine Comedy and the birth of our national identity, made on the occasion of the seven hundredth anniversary of Dante's death, which will also see the reading of verses in Grico, the minority language of the Hellen-speaking area of Salento. In Castrignano de 'Greci, Moni Ovadia with "Without borders-Jews and gypsies", a recital of songs, music, Roma, Sinti and Jewish stories. These are just some of the events in which the mixture of our host land and other cultures, not just musical, mingle, in moments where sounds and words create new identity paths made of meeting and sharing.

Notes and words that met last night, in the sign and in the memory of Daniele Durante, the recently deceased genius of pizzica. The ethnomusicologist and eclectic guitarist has also been the artistic director of the Popular Orchestra La Notte della Taranta since 2016. Yesterday's concert by "his musicians" was dedicated to him.

Daniele Durante was a farsighted and avid researcher never willing to compromise. Music was his life. Until the last day he worked on the Reincanto concert, which includes 15 pieces by 15 concert masters, available for free on ItsArt, the digital channel dedicated to culture of the ministry of cultural heritage. One of Maestro Durante's goals since his appointment as artistic director has been to provide the orchestra with its own recognizable sound, also drawing from other territories, from San Vito to Lizzano, from Torchiarolo to Ostuni. The memory of Luigi Chiriatti was moved. He underlined: "if today the pizzica is a distinctive sign of this land, a music loved and appreciated by tourists from all over the world is thanks to the research work of musicians like Durante who have stubbornly defended this land and its tradition. In the early years in which this musical genre was proposed, there was a wall around traditional musicians. The rejection of this music was a rejection of the poverty that had characterized the people of this land for years. Today that refusal has become Pride ”.

Gianluca Longo, currently coordinator of the Popular Orchestra La Notte della Taranta who is jointly entrusted with the artistic direction, also recalled the figure of Daniele Durante to whom he had approached almost with awe in a first meeting as a child, when he began to experiment with popular music and then meet him again after many years and work with him. “His guitar is here among us, in tonight's concert, and it always will be,” said the musician Longo before starting the concert as a tribute to the maestro.

MADAME, the new free voice of Italian music, Generation Z's symbol and ENRICO MELOZZI, the conductor who won Sanremo with Måneskin, are the concert masters of La Notte della Taranta 2021.

Madame and Melozzi will direct the show scheduled for August 28 in Melpignano, in the region of Puglia, which will be broadcast for the first time by RAI 1, on September the 4th at 10:30 pm. A new musical research challenge for La Notte della Taranta Foundation which for 24th edition of the Concertone aims at mixing popular language and urban rock, which is why it determines gender parity on the podium, bringing traditional songs in search of inclusion and fluidity.

The topic of the Concertone 2021 is the value of freedom.

Madame, with her debut album, has become an innovative breaking point in the urban scene for the originality of her style, committed to build a unique musical path, demonstrating that it is neither age nor genre that define the talent of an artist. Madame, the winner of the 2021 Tenco award for best first work and best single song, is today the emblem of the renewal of Italian pop.

Enrico Melozzi, defined as the new Hector Berlioz, the protagonist of a very successful artistic partnership with Giovanni Sollima, in 2012 gave life to 100Cellos, a revolutionary and visionary project. Creator of the innovative format "Rave of Classical Music", he founded the Clandestina Night Orchestra in Rome which in 2021, in full lockdown, became the first "widespread orchestra" in Europe.

Stories of creative, artistic, and cultural freedom that mix with the founding vision of the Notte della Taranta: promoting innovative musical paths.

 

Here are the reasons to choose the Notte della Taranta Foundation:

Madame is the symbol of a fluid generation, able to synthesize the most disparate themes and influences in a personal way, reflecting itself in a deliberately broken mirror in which to discover a new image of oneself each time. The dialogue with her will bring the Popular Orchestra to confront the beauty of her music and her language in the balance between poetry and reality.

Madame's words chosen by Taranta: “I looked for my answers in the books. I love words, they are a cure and also a blade, so much so that it makes me more proud to be an author than to go on stage. I like to choose the words and create something like the chef does with the ingredients for a dish. I fish from the extraordinary Italian culture that has been at the center of the world for centuries. Dante is a rare talent ”.

 

Melozzi is one of the most qualified conductors in Italy. In its activity, it has favored the open stage, shared projects with companies, artists, operators, independent spaces to experiment with participatory planning in training and self-training places, such as the Valle Theater, where access to knowledge and quality are guaranteed. to everyone.

The words of Melozzi chosen by Taranta: “We make wooden theaters, even warehouses, as long as they are spaces dedicated exclusively to culture. Music, theater, cinema, art in all its forms makes the difference between living and surviving. It is in moments of serious crisis that the greatest cultural movements in history have exploded. Let's take culture as the first step towards restarting ”.

 

The artistic direction of Concertone 2021, after the death of Daniele Durante, was entrusted to the Popular Orchestra.

 

The Concertone Notte della Taranta is a cultural project of the La Notte della Taranta Foundation, Union of Municipalities of Salento Greece, Diego Carpitella's Institute with the support of the Puglia Region, Puglia Promotion, Pugliese Public Theater, Apulia Film Commission.

Official hashtags: # taranta24 #WeAreinPuglia

NADA, EUGENIO BENNATO, TERESA DE SIO, AMBROGIO SPARAGNA and DAVIDE RONDONI, TONY ESPOSITO, LUCILLA GALEAZZI, MARIA MAZZOTTA, ELENA LEDDA, ​​FARAUALLA, ANTONIO CASTRIGNANÒ, CGS CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO, ANTONIO AMATO, ENSARELLO ENSARELLO PAGLIARA (with DARIO MUCI, EMANUELE AND ROBERTO LICCI, FABRIZIO SACCOMANNO, MARCO BARDOSCIA, MARCO TUMA), RICCARDO TESI & BANDITALIANA, CLAUDIO PRIMA & SE.ME, PEOPLE'S CHOIR OF TERRA D'OTRANTO, OFFICINA ROCAMA ZOÈ PETRACHI, THE MANDATORS, ALLA BUA, STELLA GRANDE, SISTERS GABALLO, BRIGANTS OF TERRA D'OTRANTO, LI STRITTULI and the NIGHT OF TARANTA POPULAR ORCHESTRA.

30 YEARS OF SOUTH with

SOUND SOUND SYSTEM

Live in Dj SET

MEETINGS

MONI OVADIA, ALDO CAZZULLO, DARIO VERGASSOLA and DAVID RIONDINO, FRANCO ARMINIO, MASSIMO BRAY and ANGELO MELLONE

The Notte della Taranta itinerant Festival returns to the squares of Puglia.

From 4 to 26 August it will host more than 400 artists, 35 concerts, and the party for the thirtieth anniversary of Sud Sound System.

It starts on 4 August from Corigliano d'Otranto with the homage of the Popular Orchestra to Daniele Durante, and then Nardò, Alberobello, Alessano, Sogliano Cavour, Cursi, Taranto, Calimera, Carpignano Salentino, Lecce, Nociglia, Racale, Ugento, Cutrofiano, Zollino, Castrignano de 'Greci, Galatina, Martignano, Soleto, Sternatia, and on 26 August it will close in Martano.

The Festival chooses the suburbs of two large cities to bring music into the beauty of the desires of thousands of people who live there. The protagonist will be the ORCHESTRA POPOLARE NOTTE DELLA TARANTA which will be in Lecce on 13 August in the heart of zone 167, in via Novara, and on 10 August in the market area of ​​the hamlet of Talsano in Taranto. "Let's go back to meet the public, despite the times are not entirely favorable, to support the popular music sector hard hit by Covid and fill up with positive energy, the primary source of popular creativity, commented Luigi Chiriatti, artistic director of the Festival. . One of the most anticipated appointments of the Apulian summer, the Festival which also lands in Taranto and Alberobello, confirms itself as the great widespread stage for the promotion of Italian popular culture and a growth tool for young talents.

CONCERTS

Guests of the Concerts Ragnatela will be the protagonists of the Italian popular music scene: EUGENIO BENNATO, AMBROGIO SPARAGNA and DAVIDE RONDONI, RICCARDO TESI & BANDITALIANA, TONY ESPOSITO, CGS CANZONIERE GRECANICO SALENTINO, ANTONIO CASTRIGNANÒ, ANTONIO AMATO ENSEMBLE, ORCHI , RAFFAELLO SIMEONI, ENZA PAGLIARA (with DARIO MUCI, EMANUELE AND ROBERTO LICCI, FABRIZIO SACCOMANNO, MARCO BARDOSCIA, MARCO TUMA), OFFICINA ZOÈ, KAMAFEI, ROCCO NIGRO, ENZO PETRACHI, I MANDATARI, BUFFA ALLA TERRA D'OTRANTO, CLAUDIO PRIMA & SE.ME, POPULAR SONG OF TERRA D'OTRANTO, Squeeze them.

CONCERTS OTHER CANVAS.

The Other Canvas of Women is the section of the Festival dedicated to the contribution of women in popular music and will host NADA, TERESA DE SIO, LUCILLA GALEAZZI, MARIA MAZZOTTA, ELENA LEDDA, ​​FARAUALLA. A female musical journey focused on the search for Mediterranean popular music that creates a communication channel between past and present, mixing together cultured and popular suggestions.

30 YEARS OF SOUTH

La Notte della Taranta celebrates the thirty years of activity of the SUD SOUND SYSTEM, the leading reggae formation in Italy. In Nardò on 5 August in Piazza Salandra, music with strong contents arrives that over the years has contributed to the awareness of environmentalism, immigration, and sharing in Salento. Guests in four editions of the Concertone in 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2011, Sud Sound System returns to meet the public of the Taranta.

DANTE 2021.

In the year of the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, the festival proposes on August 21 in Castrignano de 'Greci, the musical project by AMBROGIO SPARAGNA and DAVIDE RONDONI, La Bandadante - Commedia dei Vivi, dei Morti e dei Tipi Danteschi with the soloists of 'Italian Popular Orchestra of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.The show is a tribute to Dante and his journey of love and mystery using the triplets of his poetry in the concert and singing them in the style of the popular tradition of the Apennines. On 25 August in Sternatia, ALDO CAZZULLO will present the novel about the Divine Comedy and the birth of our national identity at "Riveder le stelle". The evening will be opened by the reading of verses in Grico, the minority language of the Hellenophone area of ​​Salento.

WITHOUT BORDERS
In Castrignano de 'Greci on 21 August the festival hosts Senza Confini - Jews and Gypsies by MONI OVADIA. A recital of songs, music, Roma, Sinti, and Jewish stories that resonate with the common vocation of the peoples in exile. Moni Ovadia on the
stage with Paolo Rocca (clarinet), Albert Florian Mihai (accordion), Marian Serban (cymbal) and Petre Naimol (double bass) perform a show which in its form is inscribed in music and civil theater, in the arts representative and communicative.

THE WORDS OF THE FESTIVAL
MAKING CULTURE IN THE SOUTH is the theme of the debate, scheduled in Martano on the 26th August, between MASSIMO BRAY, Councilor for culture, protection, and development of businesses, cultural, tourism, tourism business development of the Puglia Region and ANGELO MELLONE, writer and deputy director of RAI 1.

DE FINIBUS TERRAE - TERRA FINESTRA is the title of the study proposed by the Festival in Alessano on 7 August, in collaboration with the Diocese of Ugento - Santa Maria di Leuca. The national director of Migrantes Don GIANNI DE ROBERTIS, la Head of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Niger ALESSANDRA MORELLI and the bishop Msgr. VITO ANGIULI, will meet the KILLEH family from Aleppo. VINCENZO CORRADO the CEI director of social communication will moderate the meeting.
On August 16 in Racale with Homer in Italy. Myths and heroes of the times that Greece was in Puglia, and vice versa, DARIO VERGASSOLA and DAVID RIONDINO who take us to the Magna Grecia. Ulysses, Achilles, the fantastic voyages of Luciano's sailors, return to classic texts between readings and ironic comments in a show where the words are protagonists of ironic readings and comments, in a new and rich narrative improvisation.
Space for poetry in the stage of Soleto on August 24 with FRANCO ARMINIO. Defining himself as a “landscape scientist”, ARMINIO will describe the small villages by describing them with extreme reality is the situation especially in southern Italy.

INSTALLATION
The installation Lu Tamburrieddhu miu jè de Nociglia - The tambourines of Mesciu Ninu, will introduce the public to some percussion instruments made by the craftsman of Nociglia for many years the most sought after by traditional singers. John Sancesario was one of the most emblematic personalities of the popular world Salento, the last custodian of an ancient knowledge that still traveled on the paths of orality. An exhibition that tells a century-long story, from tamborra to tambourines, passing through the sieves. From the first tambourines made when Mesciu Ninu was still a kid, in the 40s, up to the last ones built by listening to the artistic needs of the players.

DANCE
With Pizzica on stage, the Corps de Ballet Notte della Taranta will propose 2 interventions unpublished works created for the natural outdoor scenery in the heart of the historic centers: a Corigliano d’Otranto on the terraces of the Castle and on the balconies of Nardò. Unpublished it Pizzica Pizzica dance show scheduled in Ugento with choreography by MATTIA POLITI.
The Festival in 2021 offers 9 pizzica workshops open to the public in the stages of Corigliano d’Otranto, Galatone, Ugento, Alberobello, Taranto, Carpignano, Lecce, Martignano, Galatina. These are workshops entrusted to the dancers of La Notte della Taranta.

THE FOOD OF TARANTA
There is also space for Il Cibo della Taranta, the section dedicated to the recovery of resources traditional farming and the role of local community economies. In the stage of Zollino in-depth study of ancient grains, flours, and traditional bread with GINO L. DI MITRI, NUNZIA MELCARNE, and FRANCESCO GIANNACHI.

ACCESS TO THE FESTIVAL
All the necessary measures will be prepared to guarantee the safety of the public, artists, operators.
Public access to the evenings of the traveling Festival will take place in absolute respect of the anti-Covid rules. Only those with Green will be able to access PASS or negative buffer certification, carried out within 48 hours previous. In all squares, seats will be set up, spaced at least one meter, which can be accessed until they are exhausted.

The Festival is a project of the La Notte della Taranta Foundation, Puglia Region, Municipalities of Salento Greece and the Diego Carpitella Institute.
Festival artistic direction: Luigi Chiriatti

Official hashtags: # taranta24 #WeAreinPuglia

Sharon Eyal will take care of the choreographies that will be performed by the dancers of La Notte della Taranta on 22 August during the Concertone di Melpignano (broadcast on Rai2 on 28 August at 22.50). 

Born in Jerusalem, the 2020 edition choreographer danced with the Batsheva Dance Company between 1990 and 2008 and began choreographing part of the Batsheva Dancers Create project. Eyal was an associate artistic director for Batsheva between 2003 and 2004 and an internal choreographer for the company between 2005 and 2012. Numerous her collaborations and projects carried out with prestigious dance companies all over the world, such as Bedroom Folk, Salt Womb, Feelings and Sara for the Nederland Dance Theater; Half-Life for the Royal Swedish Ballet; Untitled Black and Autodance for GoteborgsOperans Danskompan, Sweden; Killer Pig and Corps de Walk for Carte Blanche Dance of Norway; Too Beaucoup for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Ceiling lamp for Tanzcompagnie Oldenburg, Germany; Soul Chain for Staatstheater Mainz, Germany and more. Sharon Eyal boasts several important collaborations also in other fields than dance such as Dior.

The strength of these intertwining cultures and the ethical beauty of working on a common project have led Dior and its creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri to continue this dialogue by supporting the Concertone de La Notte della Taranta 2020, broadcast on Rai 2 on 28 August: a way to continue the extraordinary collaboration with the Foundation on the occasion of a unique event, which brings together music, dance, and energy of Puglia.

“I started collaborating with Maria Grazia Chiuri when I wrote the music for her Dior Spring Summer 2019 show. More recently she invited me to create a performance for the Resort 2021 event in Lecce in July 2020. For this occasion, I carried out a creative residency with the dancers of La Notte della Taranta. Having observed their traditions and their choreographic vocabulary, my idea was to pay homage to the tradition of pizzica. I tried to express my conception of the body in motion, its unique energies and emotions, with the skills and style characteristic of the Foundation dancers. Paolo Buonvino, this year's Maestro Concertatore, composed the pieces for this edition. Together with him, we made it our goal to honor the musical tradition of Salento by contributing to our contemporary vision of the taranta. This new work we have created together aims to create a connection with the authentic feeling of this Apulian ritual - a cathartic experience, which heals the body and soul and which illustrates the immense pride and resilience of the women of this region " explains choreographer Sharon Eyal.

The artist will perform the choreographies inspired by the music of Paolo Buonvino, Maestro Concertatore of this edition and which will be performed by the dancers: Laura Boccadamo, Mihaela Coluccia, Cristina Frassanito, Serena Pellegrino, Lucia Scarabino, Andrea Caracuta, Stefano Campagna, Marco Martano, Fabrizio Nigro , Mattia Politi.

The actor SERGIO RUBINI will be the narrator of the Notte della Taranta broadcast on RAI 2 on 28 August at 10:50 pm.

Rubini will lead RAI 2 viewers to discover the beauty of the pizzica that meets the musical themes proposed by the concertmaster Paolo Buonvino for the twenty-third edition of the most anticipated and loved event of the Italian summer.

The Apulian actor, director, screenwriter who in 1987 was chosen by Federico Fellini in Interview (in the role of his alter ego as a young man), the winner with his first work "La Stazione" of the David di Donatello, will be on the set of Melpignano to tell the meeting of the music and dance of Salento with the sounds of the world.

A 90-minute journey into the memory of the event that in 23 years has managed to ferry the ancestral rhythm into the pinch in the modern form of collective sharing. The people of the Night no longer believe in the legendary bite of the tarantula but the spider has become a symbol that creates a new and contemporary ritual around the zoomorphic divinity: the Taranta. “No exorcism, explains the artistic director of the Daniele Durante Foundation, if anything, an adoration rite around the God who dances. Those who arrive in Melpignano or dance at home no longer need to be attacked by an external element to share the ritual. There is no tarantism device in our time but La Notte Della Taranta was the trigger for a new way of conceiving the music and dance of Salento and the Concertone is the lighting of the votive fire of this modern gathering that ends every year at the crack of dawn. In the year in which we are forced to give up the energy of the public, we aim for a program that contemplates the mediation of a narrator ".

A story signed by Massimo Martelli (his last three successful editions of the Sanremo and Sanremo Giovani Festival), author of "Che tempo che fa" and winner of the FIPA at the Cannes Film Festival with the medium-length massacre of Bologna.

All on stage even if strictly without an audience, the guests of 2020: Gianna Nannini, Mahmood, and Diodato. Maestro Paolo Buonvino, author of famous soundtracks, will conduct the Popular Orchestra of the Taranta and the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra.

The direction of the 2020 edition of the Concertone is entrusted to the Genoese Cristiano D’Alisera, fresh from the success of the show "Danza con me" conducted by the dancer Roberto Bolle.

On the natural scene of the former Augustinian Convent of Melpignano, there will be the Salento lights by Mariano Light that have characterized the Concertone since 2012. A network of artistic lights that intertwine with the visual project of the director of photography Marco Lucarelli.

The scenography curated by Giancarlo Sforza is minimalist, designed to bring out and highlight the founding values ​​of the taranta. The circular platform recalls the tambourine, recalls the ancestral rhythm of this land, where the wooden installation lies in front of the suggestive scenery of the former Augustinian Convent. In this particular edition, therefore, unlike the pop stage there will be a more lyrical, theatrical stage, explains Sforza, in which, through the play of different woods, one more precious and one simpler, the materials are embraced, as if to seal that one. 'meeting between two orchestras, the Popular Orchestra of La Notte della Taranta and the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra.

The music of Paolo Buonvino will transcend the symbolic place of the event to reach, through the extraordinary images of the Pisano brothers shot among the wonders of Puglia Montesantangelo (FG), Trani, Bari, and Gallipoli, the places of the soul of thousands of tourists who are waiting to live the most beautiful night of summer 2020.

The executive coordinator of the program is Massimo Bonelli, artistic director of the May Day Concert for several years. The Media partner of the event is RAI.

It will be an emotional journey the one designed by Paolo Buonvino, maestro concertatore of the 2020’s edition of Notte della Taranta, that holds together notes and voices from the popular tradition of Salento : painful, joyful and rich in life histories.

Maestro Buonvino’s work aims to touch the sensibility of the audience that will follow “La Notte della taranta” on TV (the event will be broadcast on 28^th August on Rai 2 and will take place on 22^nd August in Melpignano) and be moved while narrating the roots of the territory. These have always been important elements for him, from the moment he started to approach the notes of the tradition to compose the music of this event edition in Melpignano. “ I have come closer to the popular music of Salento very humbly, but with a lot of passion too, of course. I have caught every shade even from the smallest things, figuring out lives and experiences and I have tried to put in it a little part of me and my life experience as well”.

“I found out that in this tradition” tells Buonvino “there are intense and meaningful aspects. The authentic richness, being a music that comes from the people, are exactly their lives, their pains and struggles they tell through the music. Of course, due to the fact that it is a popular music it is expression of people and not of professional musicians. Simplicity and spontaneity are the key words to understand it completely, and it is incredible the fact that essential and simple gestures like the beating of a tambourine, arouses emotions beyond words.”

Maestro Buonvino has tried to represent the great pathos of a tambourine being played, in an event that will be of great effect. A sort of journey towards the essence, the origin of music that is able to heal, and the liberating ballet that becomes a cure for discomfort. It is a music able to tear down walls and this is the right strength of the popular tradition in Salento : eliminates the superfluous elements, softens the rigidities, breaks the separating barriers. In front of the music the only thing people can do is following the real and ancestral rhythm and enjoy moments of interaction, when the exchange becomes the treble clef of an emotional staff.

In this edition lead by Buonvino, composer of extraordinary soundtracks for cinema movies, it would have been impossible to miss a fusion between two different music expressions : the Orchestra Popolare de La Notte della Taranta and the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta. Two different Orchestras working together to give life to a special event, almost magic. The scenic design as well will contribute to this emotional homage : a very short wood stage and almost cinematographic supports and projections.  On the background, the façade of the ex Convento degli Agostiniani, seat of Notte della Taranta foundation, is the evidence of the unique and unmissable path, the audience will be invited to travel together for just one night.

It is exactly on the notes of a pizzica danced by Taranta dancers that this morning Accademia delle Belle Arti and La Notte della Taranta Foundation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding. In the hall of the Accademia headquarter, dancers have played a choreography among Ezechiele Leandro and Pintoretto’s artworks, and the choreography has reached the students’ lab too.

A path following dancing steps to underline the connection between music, ballet and Arts. La Notte della Taranta Doundation and Accademia di Belle Arti will work together for the whole year in order to realise an artistic project  that will be presented during the Concertone 2020.

The Memorandum of Understanding establishes what follows : a direct or indirect collaboration with regards to the participation in the field of international and European projects about issues of common interest; the promotion of stage, the realisation of scientific conferences, conventions and editorial activities; the activation of scholarships and the reciprocal participation to activities of research and workshops, always on the basis of shared projects; the study and realisation of events and exhibitions that start from the scientific research and simplify their results, even promoting relations with other entities at a local, national and international level, that can be addressed both to Accademia di Belle Arti and to La Notte della Taranta Foundation.

“ It is undoubtedly source of pride for La Notte della Taranta Foundation to be an active part of a collaboration I consider strategic to add value to music through Arts and promote the cultural offer of our territory” highlights the president Massimo Manera. “We have worked during the lockdown period to this memorandum that strengthens the already existing relations with the other local entities and open to new and ambitious horizons, thanks to the presence of a prestigious institutions like Accademia di Belle Arti.”

 “The memorandum of Understanding will be one of the strong points of the cultural scheduling of our Accademia” explains Luigi Puzzovio “and will allow researches and knowledge exchanges, in addition to a very important promotion for our entire region. I thank the president Massimo Manera for this important outcome and because even though unity was strength before the pandemic too, it exactly nowadays that moving together seems more powerful.”

After dancing among sphinxes at Museo Egizio di Torino, Mahmood gets to the boundless temple of Taranta : the Concertone in Melpignano.

The unstoppable musical journey of the winner of Festival di Sanremo 2019, keeps on through the numerous scenes that have always characterised him.

On August 22^nd we will see him on the stage of the greatest festival in Italy and one of the most significant events about the popular culture in Europe, Notte della Taranta. Homage to the musical tradition in Salento and to the various histories that have been creating it, the Concertone of Notte della Taranta 2020 will be broadcast by RAI 2, on the 28^th of August at 22:50.

Mahmood’s performance will be directed by Maestro Concertatore of Notte della Taranta 2020: Paolo Buonvino. Composer of unforgettable soundtracks for cinema movies, the Sicilian composer will direct the Orchestra Popolare della Taranta and Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta on 22^nd August in the natural background of the ex Convento degli Agostiniani in Melpignano (LE).

The extraordinary music journey of Mahmood proceeds in this way – from the double victory at Sanremo Giovani and Sanremo in 2019, the second place at  Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, the success of his first European tour and the victory as  Best Italian Act at Mtv EMA last autumn- in a few months he has been able to reserve a unique music path made of original texts and a new urban sound, the result of experimentations and contaminations determining his own style.

Mahmood has just released his new single Dorado with two exceptional travel companions : Sfera Ebbasta, one of the most important exponent of the Italian trap music, and Feid, the latin artist rising in the international ranks with the hit PORFA, of which he has just released a remix in collaboration with J Balvin, Maluma, Nicky Jam, Justin Quiles e Sech. Among the special guest of Dorado also Bugs Bunny, the most famous animated rabbit in the world celebrating its 80 years exactly this year intensely demanded by Mahmood in its video and in the single artwork. The single is produced by DRD, the pseudonym od Durdust that has produced the most iconic songs of Mahmood.

Dorado gets in the chart after Eternantena and Moonlight Popolare, the latter in collaboration with the most important representative of the Italian rap panorama : Massimo Pericolo. These rythms have re-designed the pop scene : the one of the urban music, an explosive genre, fluid and kaleidoscopic gathering different elements.

Notte della Taranta is a cultural project supported by Regione Puglia, Unione dei Comuni della Grecìa salentina, Diego Carpitella research institute in collaboration with Apulia Film Commission..