& present

Goffredo Plastino + Antonio Critelli and Paolo Napoli
Tickets & info via www.mim.fgov.be

Goffredo Plastino (Newcastle University)
The happiest year of my life. Alan Lomax’s Italian photographs (1954-55)

July 2, 1954: Alan Lomax makes his first field recordings and photographs in Sciacca (Sicily), in a tuna fishery. By the time his field trip ends in January 1955 in Campania (Southern Italy), Italian ethnomusicology has changed irrevocably.
The immediate aim of the Italian collecting trip was to gather materials for the Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music series, then being assembled by Lomax. When he arrived in Italy, Lomax started a collaboration with Diego Carpitella (1924-1990), a leading Italian contemporary ethnomusicologist, that was then assistant at a folk music archive in Rome, and had already taken part in recording trips with anthropologist Ernesto De Martino. Together the two ethnomusicologists laid out a plan of research whose scope in fact far exceeded the requirements of the Columbia anthology. Their journey would last from July 1954 to January 1955, Carpitella being with Lomax in the field until the first week of October. The research would quickly become the most important event in post-World War II Italian ethnomusicology: Carpitella called it a “voyage of discovery”.
During the whole research trip Lomax photographed extensively: the photographs (more than 1700) present a clear panorama of Italian folk music and musicians, architecture, landscapes, social relations, etc. - in the years immediately preceding the massive deruralization of the country.
The lecture will go back over and explain the features of this extraordinary field research in 50s Italy, focusing in particular on the beautiful black and white images taken by Lomax.
Goffredo Plastino is Reader in Ethnomusicology at the International Centre for Music Studies, Newcastle University (United Kingdom). He has published widely on Lomax’ Italian and Spanish field recordings, on folk and popular Mediterranean music, on jazz.

Antonio Critelli and Paolo Napoli - In Concert
Antonio Critelli and Paolo Napoli are two young multi-instrumentalists from Central and Northern Calabria (Italy’s southernmost region), well known for their bravura as well as for their researches on traditional music.

During their concert at the Music Instruments Museum, they will play on several, different musical instruments (some photographed by Alan Lomax during his fieldwork in 1954-55, some other kept at MIM), such as:
- zampogna a chiave delle Serre [a chiave bagpipe from Serre area]
- zampogna a chiave del Pollino [a chiave bagpipe from Pollino area]
- ciaramella [shawm]
- surdulina [bagpipe from Northern Calabria]
- zampogna a moderna [a moderna bagpipe, from Southern Calabria]
- organetto [diatonic accordion]
- double flutes
- Calabrian lira [pear-shaped, three-stringed fiddle]
- tamburello [circular frame drum]

The performances, commented by Goffredo Plastino (Newcastle University), will give to the audience an introduction to the richness of Italian folk music as witnessed by Alan Lomax, testifying at the same time the vitality of contemporary Calabrian traditional soundscape.

Antonio Critelli lives in Tiriolo – a mountain village in Central Calabria – where he also works as maker of folk musical instruments. He has also recorded several albums with different folk revival bands. More information are available at: www.liuteriatradizionale.it.
Paolo Napoli lives in Alessandria del Carretto – a mountain village in North Calabria – where he has learnt from folk players and singers the traditional performing techniques. He is member of the group Totarella (more info available at: www.totarella.it).