MaterArmoniae

Lucan culture, unlike other Italian areas, is a prodigal of unrecognized, or unknown, ethnomusicals. Viggiano's harp, cane hammock, flying guitar, dance with the scythe, dance with the bow, tarantula with the band: matriarchal societies, church dances, special forms of religious ritual and other popular, reward the voluntary efforts and enthusiasm of anyone who seeks out in the search for the traditions of this region. The peculiarity of the design proposal arises from the idea, bold but certainly fascinating, of approaching and mixing the timbre of traditional instruments with those of the cultured music, especially the arched instruments. A totally new and never experienced experience, realizing an artistic and cultural offer where the contemporary blends with the ancient roots and the art of music is anchored in tradition.

The project develops a European festival of over 50 artistic events to be held in the places of powerful spiritual suggestion in Matera such as the rock churches and the gravina and the territory of the Murgia materana as well as in the sacred rocky sites of Basilicata. Combining styles and languages, archaic and popular spirituality. The human resources for the realization of music programs and events will be selected and coordinated by young lucans possessing specific skills alongside young European people who will be able to express their talents and experience by mixing languages and styles in line with the proposal. The project foresees, in conclusion, the commission of 5 contemporary and experimental musical works through a European call for young composers. The call will provide maximum stylistic and organizational guidelines to be used, leaving the authors free to produce new culture on the above-mentioned themes. Just in the organological choice of traditional instruments mixed with classics, electronic music and finally voice, the stylistic design that the Voice of the Spirits project identifies in the reference to Valya Balkanska conjugated with the powerful emotional potential of the Lucan tradition will be accomplished. The realization of the new works will be articulated within a training course of excellence to be devoted to the best young European musicians appropriately selected on the model of the Mahler Academy (in the background of AMB). The course will take place in Matera and will be aimed at the realization of the outfits that will be circulated within the regional fabric and towards the major European distribution circuits. Basilicata collects as a memoir of astonishing archaicness, thanks to its tirelessly conservative agropastoral culture and tells its story also through traditional music that, with its rich organology, constitutes its sound affilation, its community mythology. But it becomes the instrument of a narration of the contemporary that through the musical language of today, inspired by the ancestral fascination of Matera and the mysterious immensity of the Universe, glances away from a distant past and possible future

The project ensures accessibility and usability by all, networking and making all program actions accessible without costs / barriers. Removing cultural prejudice against the "South" and opening up to the new languages of creativity are the elements that contribute to the Matera / Basilicata strategy: the platform of the cultural system of South Europe. At a historical stage like the present one marked by a significant crisis between "material civilization" and nature, Matera and Basilicata are proposed as a laboratory through which European citizens can reconsider the value of what has been lost in a recovery of ancient musical traditions with their archaic instruments, who "speak" the contemporary language of new works. Contemporary music creates a glue between the past and the future and becomes a spiritually universal value, a song that should be understood as the Voice of the Spirit. The particular appeal of the sites hosting the performances will also be able to recall rare experiences such as darkness, silence, loneliness, and distance, all typical features of an archaic-agrarian dimension and at the same time as the depths of the universe and its possible worlds.