"...writers, musicians, and singers with this much talent, sympathy and vision, it can be pure magic".
Ian Anderson - Folk Roots
The show: See live pictures of Piccola Banda Ikona
A fascinating journey between the sounds and cultures of the Mediterranean sea in the research for a musical and lyrical language that unites its various populations. This is the idea behind the show of Stefano Saletti and the Piccola Banda Ikona A journey to rediscover the different types of music that tell the stories about the passion of the Mediterranean people.
Watch the video of "Anima de moundo"
Watch the video of "Piazza Tahrir" (live)
Watch the video of "El Ejercito del Ebro" (live)
Watch the video clip of "Hija mia mi querida"
The Biography:
A multi-instrumentalist, expert in Mediterranean music and director of international ensembles, Stefano Saletti is the founder of the Piccola Banda Ikona, comprised of such famous musicians such as the vocalist Barbara Eramo the violinist Carlo Cossu, the bassist Mario Rivera, the winds player Gabriele Coen and the drummer Giovanni Lo Cascio.
Many of the Piccola Banda Ikona's original compositions are sung in Sabir, a lingua franca used by sailors, pirates, fishermen, merchants and ship-owners in Mediterranean ports to communicate with one another: from Genoa to Tangiers, from Salonika to Istanbul, from Marseilles to Algiers, from Valencia to Palermo, until the early decades of the twentieth century this form of sea-faring "Esperanto" developed little by little availing of terms from Spanish, Italian, French and Arabic.
Their last cd "Mediterraneo Ostinato" (2021 - Finisterre) is a manifesto of a possible new "Mediterranean Power" in the name of a past comprised of art, culture, open ports, encounters and exchanges that, like a great, intertwined network has created new paths, stories and a common Mediterranean soul.
Stefano Saletti & Banda Ikona's Mediterranean is stubborn, combative, resistant. It refuses to give up, as they sing in the album’s title song.
As stubborn as the peoples of the Mediterranean are strong, ancient, obstinate and resilient.
As stubborn as repetitive music that produces a stun, trance and ritual to which we surrender.
As stubborn as the identity of a generous South that defends itself against any dominant single idea and a cultural, social, economic and political homologation that has produced new forms of marginalisation and an ever-increasing gap between wealth and poverty.
The album is sung in Sabir, the ancient language of the Mediterranean forgotten by history and revived in Stefano Saletti’s original compositions, which also draw on the great legacy of Mediterranean literature, from Calvino to Pasolini, from Matvejevic to Machado and Kavafis, from Cecco Angiolieri to Rilke to the Kurdish poet Abdulla Goran.
Twelve songs narrate the stories and the passions of a sea that unites rather than dividing, that fosters dialogue between peoples with different traditions who have always known how to live together and coexist.
In their previous cd SOUNDCITY - Sounds from border towns" (published by Finisterre and distributed by Felmay) Stefano Saletti started from the recordings that, in the past few years, he had made around the Mediterranean in many border cities: Lampedusa, Istanbul, Tangier, Lisbon, Jaffa, Sarajevo, Ventotene... Sounds, noises, radios, voices, sound spaces, buskers have all inspired his melodies, lyrics and rhythms.
Their previous cd called "FOLKPOLITIK" contains Saletti's original compositions and arrangements of tunes by the Mediterranean authors who, through their music, have described the struggle against power, suffering, persecution, arrests and violence.
In October 2012 "Folkpolitik" has reached the top ten of World Music Charts Europe and remained on the charts for three months.
"Marea cu Sarea" was awarded the "Coups de coeur du jury" award at Babel Med 2009 in Marseilles.
In recent years Stefano Saletti and the Piccola Banda Ikona have toured extensively, playing at major international festival in Italy, Canada, Portugal, Spain, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Morocco, Hungary, Greece, Egypt, Capo Verde and Germany.
Their first album "Stari Most", issued in 2005, was dedicated to the historical bridge in Mostar (Bosnia), bombed in 1993, and which has always represented a symbol of the meeting and passage between East and West
Stefano Saletti and the Piccola Banda Ikona boast numerous collaborations with writers and theatre directors in national and international tours.
Line up:
Stefano Saletti: bouzuki, oud, guitar, vocals
Barbara Eramo: vocals
Gabriele Coen: clarinet, sax, flute
Mario Rivera: acoustic bass
Giovanni Lo Cascio: drums kit, percussion
Mail to: STEFANO SALETTI - info@stefanosaletti.it
