TarantaProject is the result of a process of revisiting the work I did in August 2010 and 2011 as Conductor of the La Notte della Taranta music festival.The material from the festival, a bursting kaleidoscope of musical evocations, has since been experimented with more deeply, as illustrated in this album. My vision, in my engagements with the Taranta music, was to try to breathe new life into the ancient folk songs of the Salento (the ‘heel’ of the Italian boot), which once served as a means of driving out the world’s ills, by building a network of connections with other musical traditions and cultures, aspiring to create a universal language where ancient and modern, sacred and secular, and written tradition and oral tradition can coexist in harmony.

Artists

Ludovico Einaudi (piano, synth bass), Redi Hasa (electric cello), Roberto Gemma (accordion), Marco Decimo (cello), Laura Riccardi (violin), Leo Einaudi (banjo), Mauro Durante (tambourine, violin, violino principale), Giulio Bianco (bagpipes, flute), Gianluca Longo (mandola), Alberto Fabris (synth bass), Antonio Castrignanò (tambourine, drums, background vocalist), Antonio Leofreddi (viola), Ballaké Sissoko (harp), Emanuele Licci (bouzouki, background vocalist), Justin Adams (electric guitar), Juldeh Camara (fiddle), Giancarlo Paglialunga (drum, background vocalist, vocals), Enza Pagliara (vocals, background vocalist), Cafer Nazlibas (violin, percussion, african percussion), Cinzia Villani (vocals, background vocalist), Alessia Tondo (vocals, background vocalist), Oray Yay (african percussion), Alessandro Monteduro (percussion), Mercan Dede (drum machine, sound effects, ney flute, samples), Rome Film Orchestra, Michele Fedrigotti