The pizzica (also known as pizzica pizzica and pizzica taranta) originally was the music of tarantismo, a cultural phenomenon that emerged in the southern Salento peninsula of the Puglia region. Music and dance were employed in a symbolic ritual to cure peasants, mainly women, from illnesses purportedly caused by the poisonous bite of the tarantula... The spider's bite, however, was a metaphor for other conditions, such as grief, depression, and sexual frustration. Dancing the pizzica was a culturally-sanctioned and collective way for poor, politically disenfranchised peasants to act out and exorcise individual psychological conflicts. George De Stefano looks at two new recordings that explore the ancient roots of this music and then shatter the preconceptions: Rione Junno's Taranta Beat Project and Mimmo Epifani's Zucchini Flowers.
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Take a look at the Danish folk music scene and you will find a wide variety of subspecies. Folk musicians throughout the country specialize in many different types of folk music, so, though it's a small country, an unusually broad selection of musical styles is represented. Some musicians travel around with bands designed specifically to play concert series in Danish schools, others are so knowledgeable about the many musical traditions in Denmark that they can offer precisely the right drinking song or dance tune to weddings or harvest parties in any given region . And of course there are a good many bands that specialize in playing the clubs and little venues round the country and abroad, actively spreading the word about Danish music and culture. The Danish-Swedish group Trio Mio falls into this latter category. The musicians in Trio Mio are the Danish violinist Kristine Heebøll, pianist and accordionist Nikolaj Busk, also from Denmark, and the Swedish guitarist, bouzouki player and singer, Jens Ulvsand. The three have such widely differing backgrounds that it was a stroke of good fortune that they found each other at all.
Morten Alfred Høirup talks with the musicians of Trio Mio.
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Staff Benda Bilili

Street musicians from Kinsasha in a recording studio getting their proper sound

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world music cd coverThe pizzica (also known as pizzica pizzica and pizzica taranta) originally was the music of tarantismo, a cultural phenomenon that emerged in the southern Salento peninsula of the Puglia region. Music and dance were employed in a symbolic ritual to cure peasants, mainly women, from illnesses purportedly caused by the poisonous bite of the tarantula... The spider's bite, however, was a metaphor for other conditions, such as grief, depression, and sexual frustration. Dancing the pizzica was a culturally-sanctioned and co