C H R I S T M A S I N T A O R M I N A 2 0 2 4
Homage to
Rosa Balstreri – The Voice of Sicily
Taormina Congress Hall @ 8.30pm
Free Entrance
Voice; Barbara Arcadi
Guitar: Adolfo Crisafulli
Piano and Accordeon: Fabio Catalano
Sax and drums: Alfredo Restuccia
Drums: Matteo Venuto
Dancer: Antonella Gargano
Rosa Balistreri (21 March 1927 – 20 September 1990) was an Italian singer and musician. Her hoarse voice charged with melancholy and strong personality made her a Sicilian icon of the twentieth century.
Biography
Rosa Balistreri was born in Licata, a town in the province of Agrigento, in western declined Sicily, in the late 1920s. Her father was an alcoholic carpenter and Rosa was forced to do menial jobs, instead of going to school. In 1951, Rosa left her village at the age of 24 for Tuscany, settling in Florence, where she worked as a domestic servant. She started her artistic career at 39 performing in Turin, Milan and Tuscany.
In 1971, now renowned, Rosa Balistreri returned after twenty years in Sicily, where she would sing until her death. Often composed in dramatic style, her songs depict Sicily, as her friend Leonardo Sciascia describes, as “violent, tender, bitter, sweet, full of ambiguities”. The “Soprano of the South”, as Ignazio Buttitta nicknamed her, related the misfortunes but also the beauties and mysteries of the three-pointed island.
MORE INFO
Barbara Arcadi www.facebook.com/barbara.arcadi.5
WHERE TO STAY
Hotel La Pensione Svizzera – Hotel Villa Schuler – Hotel Villa Ducale – Hotel Villa Carlotta
