On Home, Sicily, Diets and Percussions
A January newsletter
Happy new year y’all!
Grazie mille to every single on of you for the support over the past year and for sharing your thoughts in my poll on my last post (not too late to vote by the way!).
It seems evident to me that recipes, food travels and food culture posts are the things that you guys enjoy the most. Playlists and record club perhaps a little bit less.
I am regrouping and I am going to try a few different ideas and approaches, especially with the music content. In the meanwhile let me know in the comments section what you would like to see and read in terms of the music side of things from this page.
Newsletter
But to start off the new year, I would like to introduce a newsletter, which I will post at the beginning of each month and in which I keep you up to date with my musical meanderings around the world, as much as to what is going on in my culinary world and other random things that will occur as I write.
Every year I try to go home to Torino for the Christmas break. I say home but as a matter of fact home is a very multifaceted term for me. Torino is where I spent most of my childhood, and it’s where my mother and my sister and most of my school friends still live, so it feels like home. But Ireland is the place where I have lived for 18 years now, and where my actual home is, so that feels like home too! Not to mention for at least 50% of my time, home is where my suitcase is…That is a crazy notion I am sure for most of you, but when you travel as much as I have done in past 20 years, it becomes a reality. At some stage I became so attached to the concept of “suitcase next to the bed”, that I wouldn’t even pack it away for the short spells when I was at home in Ireland!
A few years ago Rhiannon Giddens and I reflected on the concept of home, when we were stuck in Ireland during the pandemic and we recorded this beautiful song written by Alice Gerard called “They’re calling me home”
Of course here the idea of home took also another meaning, connecting to all those folks who were losing their beloved people during those difficult times. This song somehow stroke a chord for so many people and to this day it makes me very grateful when I read comments like these from our youtube video:
When our music takes an emotional and spiritual meaning in people’s life, it feels like it has a real function, and it’s a strong incentive to keep going.
New Music
Another place that feels like home is Sicily. That’s where my people came from and that’s where 90% of my DNA comes from. My family on both sides is 100% Sicilian and everything cultural in our home was always Sicilian. Sicilian language was spoken at home, Sicilian food was cooked, and we used to spend 3 months every summer in my grandfather’s birth village San Vito Lo Capo.
Sicily has been so much on my mind for the last couple of years as I embarked and finally completed a new recording project which hopefully will see the light of the day this year.
I can’t say so much at this stage but I will mention that it’s mostly a piano album and that it features some amazing guests too.
As Sicily is the main inspiration for this new music I wanted to feature the beauty of the Sicilian language, so there will be some spoken word in it, in the form of Sicilian poetry. I also dug into archival recordings of the 1940’s and have used some of those with some new music composed and improvised around them.
Last September I took a solo trip to the island, and reconnected with my father’s home village (Castelbuono), and my grandmother’s town (Trapani). While there, I listened to my family stories, I recorded many sounds in the streets, the ports the churches, and all of these ambient sounds will be featured in the album too.
It’s very much a concept album with a flow of uninterrupted music from the beginning to the end, or at least conceived as a side A and side B type of record.
As a matter of fact I am thinking of printing a limited edition of LP’s for this project and I want to ask you about your listening habits and how you would like to listen to this music:
This album is a very personal and intense emotional journey reflecting on the very intense emotional year that I have had. As the release of this album unfolds I would love to write a series of posts on the making of it, and on the stories behind the tracks.
On Diets
Obviously this September trip to Sicily had some incredible food adventures:
Food diaries
But all my food explorations and adventures, together with age, have paid a toll last year on my body. Among with the stress and emotional turmoil, my stomach hasn’t been well in quite a while. So I embarked on a series of medical exams, intolerance tests, and visits to various doctors and nutritionist. As a result of that, I have been on several diets since November and I am finally starting to see the benefits. I have lost a lot of weight and I am now on a quite strict anti-inflammatory diet at least until I hit the road towards the end of the month.
So as I mentioned on my Substack note the other day…
If you haven’t seen “Notes”, it’s basically the social media side of Substack, so get the app (which is great for reading anyway) and join me there. I am experimenting on a 1000 ways to eat brown rice and vegetables and will keep you posted on delicious things I find out!
Out on the Road
Speaking of the end of the month, on January 21st i will hit the road and I will be joining the amazing Silk Road Ensemble for a short US tour of a percussion focused program.
We have 3 dates and some workshops and outreach work in schools.
You can catch us here:
Also…if you find yourself in Killarney next week (15-19), I will participating in a couple of panels on folk music at Your Roots are Showing, Ireland’s folk music conference.
That’s all for now
A presto
I'm very happy that you are benefitting from your dietary changes. My daughter has been on a similar journey and is also looking and feeling great. I applaud you both for your self-discipline! I very much look forward to your new album, as I am also investigating my Sicilian roots.
At some point I wonder if you could write a post about the Sicilian language, and how it has changed? Do most Sicilians still speak it, or do they mostly speak Italian now? Remembering some funny words from my childhood!
Am enjoying your blog/posts very much. I love when you talk about Sicily and Italy and music. The food is interesting, too, but I love the music and stories of your roots.