Eugenio Bennato

With the stated purpose of trying to keep the tarantella alive in Italy (a dance and music that originated in certain areas in Southern Italy, including Naples, and regions of Sicily and Puglia) and the rest of the world both by recording traditional interpretations and by mixing it with contemporary sounds, Eugenio Bennato has been a pivotal and influential musician in his native country, starting with his co-founding of the group Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare in 1969, who were dedicated to both the research and revival of tradition Southern Italian music, and instrumental to the popularity of artists in the “Scuola Napoletana” (Pino Daniele, brother Edoardo Bennato, and Tony Esposito, to name a few). He issued half a dozen albums with NCCP, but around 1976 he began to also focus on composing, writing the soundtracks to 1984′s Don Chisciotte and 1997′s La Stanza dello Scirocco, among others, though his individual records, which often blended the older folkloric sounds with modern ones, were still coming out. In 1998 he founded Taranta Power, which strove to introduce the tarantella to the world, especially to the youth, and soon he had helped with the release of two albums, 1999′s Lezioni di Tarantella and 2001′s Tarantella del Gargano, both of which were comprised of recordings done by local artists. In 2002 “Che Il Mediterraneo Sia” came out on the World 2003 international artists comp , followed three years later by Da Lontano, while Sponda Sud came out in 2007. ~ Marisa Brown