Eugenio Bennato

Booking

biography

 

Neapolitan composer, musicologist, writer and former physicist, he's been among thefounders of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare (NCCP), the best known and most respected group that all by themselves brought about the real revival for ethnic and popular music in Italy. His MusicaNova-project also continually refers to traditional music by playing Italian folksongs that have been dug up by Bennato.
His relentless quest brought him into contact with Tarantella, which was a shock for him. Such a shock that he shelved all his other projects in order to delve into this ritual music with his 'Taranta Power' movement. "In the seventies I travelled all over Italy in search of the old culture's fire. I found it in the old farmers' faces, in dusty courtyards where music was made at night, in the stories the elderly told me. I heard fables and dreamstories about Mediterranean adventures, the fight against pirates, the meetings with other nationalities. And in the deep south I only had to leave the city outskirts and I would hear the Tarantella. The drum, the guitar, the rhythm, the sound. And that ancient language has become a new tongue, a movement of young and old that has revived Europe's oldest ritual".
In 2001 he partecipates to Womad Festival (Adelaide, Australia) and his song "Taranta Power" is included in the collection of this Festival directed by Peter Gabriel.
In 2002, in co-prodoction with Rai Trade, is published a new CD, "Che il Mediterraneo sia" (Let the Mediterranean Be), that becomes also a tournée.
Eugenio Bennato, with his brother, Edoardo, has written the soundtrack of "Totò Sapore", the story of the invention of the pizza.