Taranta festival to draw 150,000

(ANSA) - Melpignano (Lecce), August 22 - As many as 150,000 music and dance buffs from around the world will converge on the southern Puglia region for the annual Taranta Night festival Saturday, celebrating the dazzling folk music traditions of the Salento area.
    "This music has an extraordinary magnetism," renowned composer and violinist Giovanni Sollima told reporters at the presentation of the 17th edition of Italy's biggest music festival. "We are all going to be overwhelmed by the rhythm". The Taranta is a hypnotic folk dance first created by women working in the tobacco fields of Puglia. As the artistic director of the extravaganza, Sollima arranges and interprets classics from the local musical tradition, directing a group of nearly 30 musicians from Salento together with exceptional guests from Italy and abroad. Leading Italian musicians this year at the frenetic event include Roberto Vecchioni, Antonella Ruggiero, Alessandro Mannarino and the Mancuso brothers.
    The festival also celebrates the fusion of Salento's music with other musical genres and features a constellation of guest artists from outside Italy including Nigerian troubadour Bombino, known as the "Jimi Hendrix of the desert," Israeli mandolin wizard Avi Avital, singer Lori Cotler and tamburello virtuoso Glen Velez.
    "I have spent my life studying this instrument in the world," Velez said. "It has been really important for me to come south and see this tradition. Playing with these masters of the tamburello is a dream. And the temperature is like in Texas so I feel at home". This year's edition of the festival is dedicated to the late Latin American author Gabriel Garcia Marquez "for his commitment to placing value on memory".
    Avital said the festival also carries a message of peace for the strife-torn Middle East.
    "Music always carries a message of humanity and peace, values of which I consider myself an ambassador during these times," he said.
    Puglia Governor Nichi Vendola echoed that sentiment. "Fundamentalism is rampant in the world, contaminating popular music, rhythms and sounds," he said. "The Taranta night is about rediscovering convivial values," he said. The festival's orchestra will go on a world tour and is slated to play Bethlehem on December 23, organizers said.