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SOUNDS OF TERRA MADRE
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Foto: Christian Schmelzer
“The Sounds of Terra Madre” are one of the great innovations of the 2008 edition, presenting a journey of sound education, offering the ear something different from often-soulless commercial music.
The five days featured 48 groups with a total of 216 musicians, performing on four stages around Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto. Each day saw around 50 performances.
The performances were coordinated by volunteer Antonio Silva, a schoolteacher and music connoisseur. Enthusiastically he summed up The Sounds of Terra Madre: “It’s incredible, the people welcomed every band so warmly. Even the Russian community of Tuvi shepherds, whose songs are just simple onomatopoeic verses, were a great success… Maybe it was their unusual traditional costumes and loud wooden clogs that won over the audience!”
If this was a competition, the critics’ prize would go to The Gardeners, a group from Ireland. All the members are, of course, gardeners. Formed by five friends who met working in the gardens of Ballycotton, they decided to reinterpret the classical pieces of Irish folk music.
Today only Rupert, flautist and piper, is still working the land. “If you don’t love music, then you’re not a true Irishman. We’re the only country in the world to have a musical instrument, the Celtic harp, as our national symbol.” The band rediscovered rare traditional instruments such as the bodhrán, a large goatskin drum that makes a deep, hollow sound. According to legend it’s listened to not with the ears, but with the stomach, because it is the sound of the soul.
“We want to come back in two years. We’ve been playing so much. We even held some impromptu concerts in Turin pubs, and in exchange we asked for free beers for everyone.”
The best youth prize would go to Francisco, 15 years old from Guatemala, who plays the Sonal Ko in the group Ko Konob.
The Sonal Ko is a large wooden xylophone played by three people at the same time. It was originally used only for sacred music, but today it often accompanies Guatemalan folk ballads. “I am the youngest player in my family. My father taught me how to play, and before him my grandfather. The biggest problem we had was in the airplane; we were worried that the Sonal Ko wouldn’t make it in one piece.”
Most socially committed were the Georgian guitarist-winemakers from the region of Kakheti. They performed in traditional costume, with silver-inlaid daggers hanging from their belts. “We are playing for our people, we hope that music will bring us freedom.”
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Sounds of Terra Madre is being staged in Turin this year as part of the Terra Madre program. Musicians and dancers from food communities will perform their musical traditions – and connected theatrical, ceremonial and festive customs - which have always been interwoven with the ‘seasons’ of the land. Singing, drumbeats, hurdy-gurdies and many other instruments have long been important in tying communities to the earth and to food produced in perpetuation with natural systems. Music was inseparable from life: it brought pleasure, calmness and wellbeing and was used in healing, like a good food, and above all it was important for socialization, bringing individuals together as a community.
Therefore, for the first time Salone del Gusto, Turin and Piedmont, are hosting Sounds of Terra Madre performers and offering these non-professional musicians a stage to express the daily life and rituals of their agricultural communities.
Click here to see group details and performance schedulesand to see the day by day program.
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