Shows
La vuci mia
Suite for voice and instruments based on fragments of the Sicilian tradition
A homage to Alberto Favara and many other ethnomusic scholars active in Sicily at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, in their quest for melodies and songs that best expressed an authentic idea of the world and lives of the people of Sicily. Songs of the sea, incarceration, love, religiosity, outrage and scorn… A sort of minimum anthology that develops melodies into a more accomplished and contemporaryweaving under the care of Giuseppe Greco establishing an atemporal sphere while maintaining strong links with theMediterranean and its most ancient consonances. The singing of Laura Mollica, rated amongst the Expressions of Sicilian Identity, is not just an act of love towards the tradition, but an example of research of technique and expression that never shies away from the most arduous and steep melismata as ornamental embellishments of the melody, but can also rarefy into pure sound. The chamber ensemble includes instruments of both the erudite and the popular tradition.
Musical project by Giuseppe Greco. With Laura Mollica.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
Cialoma
Ethnotexts of sky, sea, land and salt
A path through the emotions, myths and legends of the sea and their true, actual protagonists but also of imaginary ones transfigured by popular whim and fancy. The kidnapping of the maid by Sarrasin pirates, Colapesce’s voyage to the abyss and the grottoes of Scilla, the description of the ancient oral tradition performed by Laura Mollica a voce libera and a small chamber ensemble directed by Giuseppe Greco. Laura Mollica is the singing and reciting voice. Her tale, in prose and verse, is the tale of a “seafaring female”, siren, story-teller, madonna... expressing the ancestral voice of the waves and the energy of the people of Sicily living on fishing, dreaming and waiting.
Written and interpreted by Laura Mollica. Musics by Giuseppe Greco.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
Songs and Tales of the Vicarìa Prison
Ethnotexts Play
In the Sicilian ethnomusic landscape the songs of the incarcerated represent perhaps the most beautiful pages that popular sentiment ever expressed: a fusion of manyfeelings where despair for lost freedom takes center stage. A simple, elementary idea, a concept that turns into song, voiced by the prisoner out of the attitude we imagine pervades him behind prison bars and that acquires such pure and perfect force that troubles and upsets the public approaching for the first time the collection of tales that Giuseppe Pitrè and Alberto Favara made at the end of the 19thSelf commiseration, sorrow, regret: these are the main themes to which must be added the one of revenge that, more than a wish, is to be seen as a necessity, as for many it represents the best chance to conquer dignity. The tale of the Vicarìa is narrated in fragments, states of mind, as a form of emotional mosaic in which the sustaining element is essentiality and rarefaction. century.
Written and interpreted by Laura Mollica. Musics by Giuseppe Greco.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
The Poet and Love
Homage to Ignazio Buttitta’s love poetry
I chose ten love poems by Ignazio Buttitta taken mainly from the collections Il poeta in piazza and Io faccio il poeta, and I laid them on a melodic cursive that takes into account the traditional matrix, but also looks for consonances and developments in the European music of the 20th century. These are songs where love is expressed with passionate force, but also irony and metaphysical lightness. A Buttitta without his customary political engagement, but no less incisive and vibrant in his descriptive and expressive powers. This projects sees the singer supported by a chamber music ensemble giving life to articulate, contemporary composition patterns that, while taking into account their popular origin, open up to unusual andunprecedented developments. This concertcan also be performed as a symphony.
Musical project by Laura Mollica. Texts by Ignazio Buttitta. Orchestration by Giuseppe
Greco.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
Ciatumè
Sicilian popular songs recital
A homage to the great Sicilian musical tradition and to the interpreters that made it famous, first amongst many Rosa Balistreri, of whom Laura Mollica performs the most famous and well-known songs, such as Mi votu e mi rivotu, Quannu moru and A curuna. Within the repertoire and the music of the past, Ignazio Buttitta’s poems come to life, as the most famous I pirati a Palermo together with works by other poets of the 20th century. The show unfolds along an anthological path through human and social issues traditionally expressed through the medium of music by the people of Sicily. In passionate dialogue with Giuseppe Greco’s guitar, Laura Mollica is the sweet, provocative and sensual interpreter of the great music of the Mediterranean through its rhythms, accents and modes.
Musical project by Giuseppe Greco. With Laura Mollica.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
Tales
A hypertext narration through words and singing. Written and performed by Laura Mollica, Tales is a performancethat proceeds, fragment after fragment, flowing through a variety of moods. From the great repertoire of the Sicilian traditionand its most peculiar traits, a fantastic and captivating narration unfolds. The realcharacters and those transfigured by popular imagination run after one another, split and scatter, proceed along parallel paths to harness the spectator with a powerful and impressive emotional alchemy. Song, music and word alternate seamlessly. Together with the singer-actress, the small chamber ensemble performs musics by Giuseppe Greco.
Written and interpreted by Laura Mollica. Musics by Giuseppe Greco.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
Females
This is a performance-concert that presents the great repertoire of the Sicilian tradition that sees Woman as its unquestioned protagonist. Laura Mollica leads this captivating, rich and vibrant performance with an accomplished chamber ensemble with Giuseppe Greco, co-curator, on guitar. The musical program comprises lullabies, love, outrage, scorn and work songs where it is either the woman herself who expresses her moods, passions and aspirations, or her features, beauty and feelings are described by a man.
Written and interpreted by Laura Mollica. Musics by Giuseppe Greco.
Produced by “Officina dell’Arte”.
