CABIT
Serenin From the BLACK SEA to the LIGURIAN SEA

fy 8275

885016827526
Felmay Records

 

CABIT is a duo that has always paid attention to the traditions of their native Liguria. The new album “Serenin” instead throws a musical bridge between Liguria and Turkey. Historically, the commercial and cultural ties between the two areas have lasted for over 800 years, not counting the affinities between traditional musical intruments. In this long story of contacts, contaminations are the natural consequence. For this album, a mixed ensemble of 8 Ligurian and 5 Turkish musicians was created mixing their respective traditional repertoires, reworking a a new and unpublished language of contamination between the musical languages of both sides.

‘Serenin’ is born from a project by CABIT, the musical duo formed by Davide Baglietto (an expert of European bagpipes) and Edmondo Romano (composer and multi-instrumentalist of wind instruments). Their collaboration has always focused on the traditions of their home land Liguria, which inspired “Unico Figlio”, the previous album dedicated to Christmas musical traditions.
This new album, instead, build a musical bridge between Liguria and Turkey. Many reasons for this unpublished choice: the contacts, ties, commercial and cultural exchanges that have historically occurred between the two peoples; the colonization by Genoa of a large part of the Black Sea up to Rize and Trebizond; for over 800 years there have been frequent exchanges between these areas and contaminations are the normal and natural consequence.
There are also important musical and organological elements that unite the two cultures: bagpipe is called tulum in Turkey and  piva in Liguria; the popular oboe ,very similar in form, is called zurna in Turkey and piffero on the Apennine; Turkish duduk or mey is the  ancestor of our popular clarinet in C; strings kemençe and hurdy-gurdy... Fot this occasion a mixed ensemble of Turkish and Ligurian musicians has been created and recorded in Istanbul with a mobile studio. Ligurians, in addition to Baglietto and Romano: Matteo Merli (voice), Matteo Dorigo (hurdy-gurdy), Simona Fasano (voice), Stefano Valla (piffero) e Daniele Scurati (accordion), Marco Fadda (percussions). Turks: Filiz Ilkay Balta (tulum), Alparslan Kurtoglu (voice, kemençe), Erhan Zaza (davul), Fahri Çelebi (percussions), Onur Ural (zurna, duduk).
Between melodies and songs from their respective repertoires, the musicians have reworked a new traditional language, previously unknown: a direct encounter that has given life to a rare and sincere intertwining of musical languages.
"This CD (made up of a constellation of many little stories, eleven little dreams, songs, invented by people born in different shores in order to tell their stories and dance) tells  a story which seems the sonorous and vibratile epitome of the rapid exchange of invention and trade which the Mediterranean has experienced. Compare two cultural and musical lineages, growing up looking at the sea in front of them and knowing how to face it, and knowing that they have, at their backs, the shelter and the obstacle of the moutains. One the Turks call Kara Deniz, The Black Sea; the other, our part, they call Ak Deniz, The White Sea. This CD tells the history of Ligurian musicians who have salt encrusted hands, and in their noses the fragrance of the wild herbs of the inland valleys, which lead to the great North. People whose ancestors were shameless and courageous mercants, who went to the Turkish coast to settle and live, and to seek to build a bridge for possible exchange with the Orient; and there, where they could, aas the proverb says, "They built another Genoa". During their stay in Istanbul, the musicians from The Black Sea tackled repetoirs from "the other Mediterranean"; the Cabit ensemble learnt to master those of the Turks. Putting into practice music, dreams, and another (possible) reality, as Jean-Loup Amselle expounded with these words, “Contary to what the fanatics for the purity of origin think, mediation is the shortest road towards authenticity”. Guido Festinese