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Unleashing Creativity: Lauren LoGrasso on Balancing Art and Empowerment

Los Angeles-based Italian American Lauren LoGrasso has quite the juggling act as a singer, songwriter, podcaster, producer, public speaker, and creative coach. Her key to keeping all the balls in the air? Scheduling.


"It's easy to let our creativity pass us by if we just treat it like a thing that will show up whenever we want it to," Lauren says. "We have to prioritize it the same way we prioritize our relationships—especially when nobody's asking you for it—when it's all self-driven."


Driven is the keyword for this "multi-passionate" creative. In the past year alone, she won not one but two Webby Awards for her podcast, Unleash Your Inner Creative, released a single, and helped others realize their creative potential through coaching. 2025 also promises to be a big year, with several exciting projects on the horizon.


We recently had a chance to sit down and discuss our shared Sicilian heritage, where she gets her creative inspiration, what it means to have an award-winning podcast, her favorite interview moment, future plans, and her overall goal.



Tell us about your connection to Sicily.

I am 75% Sicilian. My mom is half Sicilian and half northern Italian, and my dad is 100% Sicilian. I grew up feeling very connected to it. We were over at my grandparents' house for Sunday dinners. They had a huge part in raising me because my parents worked, so they took care of me a lot. 


I had a pretty classic Italian-American upbringing. I was very close to my cousins. I'm an only child, so my cousins were more like my siblings. My heritage is something I have always been really proud of, but as so often happens with our culture, in particular, it gets watered down.


Our people really wanted to assimilate and threw a lot of their customs away. And so I feel like my role in my twenties and thirties has been about reclaiming and retracing some of the steps and figuring out some of the things we lost or gave away because we wanted to fit in.

 

Part of that was being the first person in my family to go back to the towns where my family was from. Two weeks before I was going to Sicily for the first time, my dad handed me a letter that his first cousin Nicola had written to him back in 2009. He just never answered it for some reason but held onto it. I asked, "Do you want me to do anything?" He's like, "Just go to this address." So my boyfriend at the time, now my fiancé, and I went to Marsala.


We were like, "We have to go to this address just in case they're somehow still living there from 2009." It was back in 2022 that we went, and we took this little cab, and we showed up at their apartment door, and it still said LoGrasso on it. So I was freaking out. I started violently pressing the buzzer, and I was panicking in that split second because we didn't have a phone number for them.

 

All of a sudden, these two guys come out on the balcony on the second floor. They look down at me, and I say, "Hello, my name is Lauren LoGrasso. I think I'm your cousin." And they look at each other, they look at me, and they go, "One moment," and they rush down the stairs.


I pulled up the picture of the letter I had on my phone. It was from them. We were hugging and crying. They let us up to their apartment. They had this thing that said "Foto America" on it, and it wasn't like it was buried in a bin. It had pictures of all of us—their American cousins.  It was right next to their kitchen table. And through that, I ended up getting to meet them: Nicola, my dad's first cousin; his wife, Maria; their son, Alessandro; another cousin of ours, Salvatore; and his wife, Rosa. And it was just one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, and they had been waiting for us all of that time.

 

It still brings me to tears now, but Salvatore wrote in Google Translate, "This moment has been awaited for 70 years."

 

I've always been very connected to my Sicilian heritage, especially over the past two years, as I've gotten to know them and built our relationship. I was able to bring my parents back to meet them for the first time. I feel very connected now. I'm learning Italian, and it's been like a reclaiming. It felt like a puzzle piece that had always been missing in me was put back into place. 

 

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Lauren has been singing since she was a little girl. 

 

What inspired you to pursue such a range of creative outlets?

I always loved singing. That was probably one of the first things I did from the time I was little. My mom got me a karaoke machine when I was two and a half. When I was three, I started doing musical theater, and then at the end of high school, I was like, "Well, I should probably do something more practical. So I'm going to go into broadcast journalism because I want to be a talk show host."

 

I had no desire to actually be a real journalist following a story, so I ended up dropping the journalism thing. It really wasn't for me. And I got a BFA in acting and a BA in communication. 


I originally came to Los Angeles just to act, and I discovered music kind of accidentally. I had always done musical theater, but I didn't write music until I came here.


When acting started really breaking my heart because of all the rejection, I discovered this ability and passion for songwriting. I linked up with this guy I knew from Michigan State, and we started playing all around town. 


When I was on my way to these gigs, I would listen to SiriusXM radio. I'd done radio in college, but just DJing. But that's when I really fell in love with the medium of talk radio.


So I just got this obsession with it, and I was like, "I'm going to work at SiriusXM someday." I didn't know anyone who worked there. I really only had this college experience of radio. But, long story short, I ended up working there. That got me into hosting and producing, and then I transitioned into podcasting.


Public speaking is something that I have wanted to do since I was in middle school or high school. But this whole time, I've kind of felt like I need to wait until I actually have something to publicly speak on. So, I knew that I needed to build experience. Being in L.A. and pursuing the arts in any way definitely gives you the chops, pain, and resilience to speak from. So now I speak about the topics that I've kind of discovered through my journey here and on my podcast, which are related to creativity and self-development. 


Coaching was a natural thing that I started doing because people were asking me for my advice all the time, and I found myself getting burnt out by doing it constantly for free. So finally, I was just like, "I guess I should just make this part of my job. People seem to want it, and I do love giving people advice." So it's really nice when they solicit it because I'm trying to work on not giving unsolicited advice!

 

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Unleash Your Inner Creative airs on podcast platforms.

 

Tell us what motivated you to launch your podcast, Unleash Your Inner Creative.

There were a couple of things. Number one, I really believe, and now I have proof via a NASA study that we are all born creative, but that life knocks it out of us. And so I wanted to help people remember, reclaim, and unleash it. Because I saw a lot of people, whether it was people in L.A. who came out here with a big dream and, just as things got disappointing, pushed it further and further down, or people in my family who I could tell just never even let themselves turn that creativity on.

 

I started to notice a level of depression or even numbing out in them. I really believe that repressed creativity causes a lot of personal suffering, and I don't want to see that happen anymore. 


I was also producing a podcast, and this guy on it said, "In 50 years, 85% of all jobs will require creativity; it's the one thing AI can't do on its own. It can replicate human creativity, but it cannot be creative."


So there was this more spiritual self-development reason that I believe repressed creativity causes suffering and a practical reason that being creative is the one thing in the world that will always make you financially viable. There is nothing more powerful than a good idea. 


The show aims to give people tools to love, trust, and know themselves enough to claim their right to creativity and pursue whatever it is that's on their heart. It sits at the intersection of self-development, mental health, spirituality, and creativity/the creative process. 

 

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Lauren proudly holds one of two Webby Awards she won in 2024.

You've won Webby Awards. What does that mean to you personally and professionally?

It was wild because I had applied for the web awards several times before I was even nominated, and I was nominated and won for the first time last year. The year before that, I was an honoree. But what it meant to me was that almost six years ago, I was right to take a chance on myself. 


There was a company I was supposed to work with at the time who was going to produce my show. They ended up pulling out at the last minute, and I decided to still go forward and produce it independently. And it was just a signal to me that, "Wow, I was right to take a chance on myself. This is resonating." 


Also, it meant a lot to me personally because of how my community supported me. Unfortunately, many times in life, we have to wait for something bad to happen to find out how much people support us and love us.  My community, listeners, friends, and family showed up for me so beautifully, and because of that, I was able to see how much people wanted to see me shine and felt like they were part of my success. 


I wish that for every person because I think we should all have that opportunity and privilege to get to know how much people want to see us succeed. 


I think it's easy to feel like the underdog and feel like, "Oh, nobody sees me." But when something like this comes up, and people actually show up for you, that, to me, was the greatest win. 


Once we got to the awards, I looked at the program, and there were all these huge companies like Vox Media, PBS, MSNBC, and then Lauren LoGrasso Productions. It was like, "Hell yeah!"

 

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Lauren poses on the red carpet at the Webby Awards.

You've interviewed multiple notable personalities. Can you share a memorable moment from one of those interviews?

They've all been memorable in different ways. There's this one that really stands out to me: Julia Cameron. I've gotten to interview her every year for the past four years. The first time I got to interview her was mind-blowing because there would be no Unleash Your Inner Creative without Julia Cameron. She was the first person in our general time period who actually said, "Everyone's an artist. There are ways to unleash these qualities within us. Here are some tools."


Her book and the "Morning Pages" changed my life so dramatically. So, the whole first time interviewing her was really beautiful, but at the end, she sang, and it felt like I got to see her younger self come out. 


It's interesting because when you're in a supportive role, whether you're a coach, a teacher, or even a self-development writer, I think people often don't see you as your own creative being and artist. They just see you as the teacher.


When she sang the song at the end, I got to see her younger self and true artist come out. And that was really special. 

 

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"...your worth doesn't hang on whether or not the ambition ever comes to fruition."

What advice do you have for someone who's just starting out?

The thing I wish I had, looking back on it when I was starting, and even now, I need to work on it every day, is taking my worth out of outcomes. It's really easy to confuse creativity with how something is received, and your creativity and artistry have nothing to do with how far your work goes.

 

You are an artist, or you are a creative, regardless of whether or not you ever become mainstream or anything close to it. And I think starting out, knowing that you are worthy, the chances of you being born are literally—this isn't a random statistic— one in 40 billion.


So, just the fact that any of us are here is a miracle. And as much as we can, taking our worth out of outcomes and knowing that the pursuit of doing it, just doing it, just putting it out is the whole exercise.


You can still be ambitious, but know that your worth doesn't hang on whether or not the ambition ever comes to fruition. That and self-knowledge, I really do believe, are the keys to pretty much everything in life. But you definitely deserve to unleash your creativity and share it with the world. It's much more holistic than we give it credit for. The inner work is really important, and you should also enjoy life.


When I first moved to L.A., I was so obsessed with making my dreams come true that I didn't let myself be a person. And if you don't let yourself just be out in the world and enjoy human things, you have nothing to create from. So I would say make time for joy, make time for rest, and make time to remember who you are outside of what you do.

 

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Lauren has spoken publicly at events, including the Girlboss Rally.

What future projects or goals do you have in mind for your career, and what can we look forward to?

I've been doing more and more public speaking over the last year, but I'm going to be going really hard with that in 2025. For public speaking, I just finished my reel and my speaker's deck. I'm launching a new website, so you can expect to see me out in the world speaking a lot more. And I'm incorporating music into my speaking, which is really cool. I've been trying to find a way to bring all my creative children under one roof for a while. So that will be coming.


I've got a few new singles. One is about the personal shadow and integrating it so you're a whole person. Another is about my struggles with codependency and healing from that. And I've got some other ones about family generational trauma and stuff.


I've been working on a children's YouTube show with a friend for a long time, so I'm hoping that will come out. We're very close to the end, but just a few more things to tie up and hopefully work with great new creatives and people doing podcasts.


I love helping people find their voice and bring that into the world. That's definitely one of my passions. And so yeah, hopefully, meeting new people to work with and support them in their creative journeys, too.

 

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Lauren says the key is being yourself. 

 

What is your goal with all of your creative pursuits?

The first thing that came to mind was just to be myself. I think a lot of us have a dream to make our living being ourselves in some way, whatever that means to us. And yeah, I want to use my voice to help other people feel empowered to find and use their voice or whatever their creative outlet is. So, the goal with all of it is to be able to feel fully expressed and not feel like I left anything on the table when I leave this world. 

 

 

 

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Sicilian Roots and Jazz Rhythms: The Musical Journey of Daniela Schächter

Growing up in Messina, Sicily, greatly impacted Massachusetts-based jazz singer, pianist, and composer Daniela Schächter. Drawing from her experiences within a musical family and the Mediterranean views of her former home, her music has led her to prestigious jazz festivals and renowned venues, from the Hollywood Bowl to the Kennedy Center. Along the way, she has collaborated with acclaimed artists and won several awards for her contributions to jazz music. 

 

Daniela and I recently chatted about her musical influences, her decision to pursue jazz as a career, her role as an associate professor at Berklee College of Music, and more.



How did your experiences in Sicily shape your career?

I had a musical family. My father was a piano player. He didn't turn that into a career, but he played all the time, and my mom sang. So, I grew up with music around my house, and my brother, Davide, is a jazz guitar player. So I started studies in classical music, took lessons, graduated from the conservatory, and then started teaching and playing. I did lots of different jobs: accompanying singers, working for the Philharmonic Academy, and playing ballet pieces. Then, I started playing with rock bands and jazz groups. That was really fun. I had lots of friends and lots of concerts; it was beautiful.


There is lots of jazz still going on in Sicily; it's really a land full of talents. I was there until I was 28, when I moved to the U.S. I thought I would stay for six months, but then I decided to stay longer. 

 

What inspired you to pursue jazz?

That's probably because of my mother's influence. She listened to lots of Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and all the great singers of the jazz era. She would take me to a little jazz club back in the day, and she would go there and sing with other musicians.


I loved listening, and then I took lessons in jazz piano. My brother started playing in little jazz groups, so there was a lot of jazz in the house.

I felt that jazz was closer to my soul in a sense and harmonically closer to the classical composers that I felt very attracted to.

 

When I was in Sicily, I was actually doing lots of different styles. But then, when I moved to the U.S., I just decided to marry the jazz world. I didn't really continue with rock groups. I still love lots of the music that I played, but I just don't play it anymore.

 

Which musicians or composers have the biggest influence on your work?

Well, classical, definitely Ravel and Debussy and also Bartók and Stravinsky. So lots of contemporary composers. But of course, I also love Rachmaninoff and Chopin. For jazz, I have lots as well. So, from Gershwin to more contemporary stuff. Of course, I love Sarah Vaughan and Mel Tormé; those vocalists are very dear to me. But, of course, great pianists like Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans. They really made an impression, and probably, they're still in my sound.

 

From where else do you draw inspiration?

I am inspired by lots of different things. First of all, nature. My second album is dedicated to the colors of the Mediterranean Sea, so it's called I Colori Del Mare. And that is my favorite album that I recorded because it really brings me back to all the colors of Sicily, the sea, and the beauty of nature.

 

Nature is definitely my main inspiration, and everything related to the sea because I grew up in Messina, which is surrounded by sea. 

 

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You've won several awards. Which is most meaningful?

I think of the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Piano Competition because that was the first. That was really promoting women and women in jazz. It was very competitive, and I felt that everybody really deserved it as much as I did. Everybody was really good, and I didn't really feel that I was going to get it, so it was a great joy when that happened. I was really happy that the judges found something a little bit different and something special in me. Pianists Geri Allen and Billy Taylor were among the judges, jazz legends for whom I have so much respect. Sadly, they are not with us anymore.  

 

You're an associate professor at the Berklee College of Music. What do you enjoy about your role?

I enjoy it when I have foreign students who come to me and need guidance. Most of them are super talented, but they need guidance in finding themselves in a place they don't know, which is new to them. I love helping them get used to a new environment and explaining my experience because I went to Berklee College of Music myself. So, I can totally understand what they go through, how they process things, and how overwhelming the whole system can be. 

 

How do you see your music evolving?

My music is going to evolve with my own person, evolving and finding more balance. I often go to Italy because I want to keep the connection. I want to remind myself who I am, what I love, and where I'm coming from. I want my daughter to feel the same. She actually feels Italian, which is something that makes me really happy. 

 

I want to find a balance between my professional life overseas and my professional life here. Since I have a 7-year-old daughter, she took a lot of energy, and I couldn't commit to several engagements. Between that and the pandemic, I've not really been performing as much as I love to. So, I would like to find myself performing more often, especially in my own country. 

 

What do you hope to deliver to your audiences through your music?

What I try to communicate is images of, for example, nature. So, the way I see it, and in many of my compositions, I describe a lake, pond, or leaves that fall. And I would like my audience to feel the way I feel.

 

I also write lyrics, and sometimes, the message is easier to understand through words. Writing more songs with lyrics will also help me in that sense. I love to write wordlessly, but at the same time, I have a few songs with lyrics, and I would like to continue with that and even include more lyrics in my pieces. 

 

 

 

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Michela Musolino: A Sicilian Heart, A Global Stage, and the Birth of 'Folk-a-Billy'

Memphis-based Sicilian-American singer Michela Musolino has toured the world, performing in medieval castles, ancient temples, New York City landmarks, and national folk festivals. She's recorded traditional and contemporary Sicilian folk songs and roots music. She's even branched out into something she calls "Sicilian folk-a-billy." But no matter where she stands and how she sings, her heart remains in Sicily. 


"I really feel like I got my start in Sicily," Michela says. "I probably performed more in Sicily in the beginning than here. Nobody knew who I was here, but in Sicily, I had already performed at festivals and temples. They welcomed me so beautifully. So, I always feel that even though I performed a lot in New York for many years, Sicily was more like the home for what I do."


Michela and I recently chatted about her traditional Sicilian-American upbringing and how that shaped who she would become. She shared her favorite venue, experience, and what inspired her foray into "Sicilian folk-a-billy." And because Michela's a walking encyclopedia of Sicilian folk music, we discussed the people and traditions that shaped the songs she sings today. 

 

 

Tell us about your background.

My family is Sicilian. I have one grandpa who is from Calabria, so I'm one-quarter Calabrese. My other grandparents are Sicilian. My mom's dad was from Borgetto, which is about 40 minutes away from Palermo. My mom's mom was raised in Palermo by a Palermitano father, but she was actually born in Argentina. My grandmother's father took her back to Sicily when she was young so she could be raised. Her mom died when she was young, so her father took her back to Sicily so his family could raise her in Palermo, and she grew up in Palermo. And my dad's mom was from a town in the province of Agrigento called Ribera. I still have a lot of family there. My grandpa was born in Reggio Calabria, a town called Calanna.

 

How did you get started?

I have always been very enamored with my heritage. My mom and dad always talked about our family history and told us all the stories of our family. 


My dad was a big fan of American music, especially American country music, Italian-American artists, and Italian music. So we heard a lot of music in the house. 


I grew up hearing Sicilian, hearing the language, because my parents, aunts, and uncles all spoke that to my grandparents. 


When I was all grown up and married and out of the house, I took a workshop for folk dance in New York City, and the people who were running were in the folk company, I Giullari di Piazza, and they asked me to audition. The director of the company, Alessandra Belloni, asked me to audition. They needed extra people in their theater company. I auditioned, and I remember coming home and telling my dad, not even that I was auditioning for the show or anything, but that I was studying folk dance and frame drumming. 

 

He said, "Well, it's good. You should study drumming because that's your tradition. That's what women do."

 

It was strange hearing that from my father because he was not very big on defining women's roles. He was very progressive and open. And I said, "What are you talking about?"

 

He said, "Your grandma used to drum."


I said, "Wait a second…."


He said, "Your grandma had a drum."


"As a matter of fact," he says, "when your grandma came here when she was a young woman, she brought a drum with her. And your great grandma, when she was in Sicily, was known for her dancing."


So these things are in us. Then it's been this wild ride. It's still a wild ride every day, just doing something I love: working with music.

 

What is it about Sicilian music that drew you in?

I just adore Sicilian music, and it's been interesting because I'm exploring it from all different aspects and doing all different things to create things with this music. And when I try to do different projects, they only go so far. When I try to do projects outside of Sicilian music, they only go so far. And I was involved in some projects up until about last year, and there was veering off the path of Sicilian music, and all of a sudden, all these things started to happen. All these opportunities for other creative projects or other performances came all at once. It was like Sicily pulled me back. We're not done with you yet.

 

Describe your experiences in the different types of venues.

It sounds kind of cliche, but I find each venue and experience more enriching than the last, even if it's not the same. Let's say maybe one venue is a beautiful theater and it is full, or another venue is a very small locale. Each show has its importance and its connection, and it has its meaning. But the thing that I think had the biggest impact on me is that I feel it, and it really charted my course, something that had a huge, huge influence on me because, to this day, I'm still living the repercussions of it. It was when I performed in the temples in Sicily, and I did that for several summers. I went to a festival by chance.   


I was there to do some research and to work with some musicologists, and I had my daughter. She was very little then, and I had to change the course of my trip; I thought I was going to just go see my friend, Alfio Antico, perform in Selinunte. And when I got there, yes, Alfio performed that night, but it was in the evening dedicated to the memory of a Sicilian singer/songwriter by the name of Pino Veneziano. And I fell in love with the music that they were playing. 

 

By then, Pino was already deceased by a number of years, but they were playing his music that night. I remember my daughter falling asleep at the concert, and I walked back. I was talking to the people in the Pino Veneziano Association, and I said, "Listen, I'm a singer. I'm from New York. I'm friends with Alfio. Look, he's on my album."


I pulled one of my albums from my bag, and I'm trying to carry my daughter in one hand while she is asleep. I love this music. What can I do? I want to sing it.

They're like, "Here's the album; just sing it."


So, from that night, I met friends of mine who are still my dear friends that I would go back to see. Just going back to those temples and doing that year after year after year became a big turning point in my life. But it's also a big part of my life. And it was strange for me because this summer, I was in Sicily, and I was very, very busy on the other side of the island.


I spent time at the foot of Etna, and it was a beautiful experience, but it felt weird. I was apprehensive about going because I'd become so used to being in the protective embrace of these temples for years. 


Even when it wasn't summertime, and I wasn't performing, I'd be there. I would go, and I still had to visit the temples. I still talked to my friends and visited my friends in that area. So, that venue had a profound, profound influence on my life. And as I said, from that experience, going back there summer after summer created lifelong friendships, collaborations, and a richness of music I discovered. 


I was able to do a lot of research, and I feel that it's still ongoing. Those temples, even when I wasn't on that part of the island, were somehow still impacting me. I feel that what I achieved on the other part of the island I would've never done if it wasn't for all those experiences I had in the temples. 

 

You've developed a style you call "Sicilian Folk-a-Billy." What inspired that?

What happened was quite simple: I moved to Memphis. I finally had the opportunity to get out of the Northeast. I wanted to leave the Northeast forever. I never quite felt like I was going to stay there, but circumstances in life kept me there. Then, I had the opportunity to move, and I knew I wanted to come south somewhere. I wound up in Memphis because I had heard that a lot of artists were moving to Memphis from other parts of the country. I heard that a lot of artists from different genres were moving to Memphis and not just artists making Memphis music or American blues or soul music, but all different genres. And I looked at it, I said, "You know what? Memphis, I like it."


So I came here, and COVID was still kind of a thing. It was 2021, so venues weren't really open. And I had to do a few concerts from my house, things that would be broadcast up in New York. So, I used Memphis musicians. And I wanted to make an album. I talked to somebody down here who was producing, and they said, "Well, we just did a Christmas show in your house. Why don't we do the Christmas album?"


We had been using Memphis sounds and different things. We used rockabilly, American country music, blues music, a little bit of blues, a little bit of soul, a little bit of swing.


We took mostly Sicilian traditions and added a little bit of Americana, and I felt it was going to be a good way to start off here in Memphis. It's a good way to show the movement of music, how music comes from one culture to another, and how music transfers with the immigrants. 

It's like, I'm Italian-American coming to Memphis. How does the music change now with me? So that's kind of where that developed.


It was almost organic, letting the musicians here contribute their ideas and sounds. In fact, most of the musicians, except for one on the album, are Italian-American. I didn't plan it that way. It just happened. 


The fiddle player, Alice Hasen, who is not Italian-American, shows up, and she says, "I was trying to listen to different kinds of Sicilian music and Southern Italian music so I could get an idea of what to play."

 

We're like, "No, no, no. We want to hear your style. We want you to play. You got the arrangements, but we want to see what you're going to add to it."


So that's kind of how we came up with the Sicilian folk. It's not rockabilly; it's folk music but a little bit of everything. My first album here was just my homage to Memphis. So that's where that came from. I guess you could say it was pretty much just the collision of these traditions with Memphis sound. 

 

Let's talk about those folk traditions from Sicily.

You start listening to songs in their most basic form, which we have, let's say, the most basic arrangements that we have documented or the oldest unadulterated field recordings. When I say unadulterated, I mean the field recordings that are the oldest we have and the field recordings that are the most untouched by pop music or anything like that. You can hear the influences. You can hear the melodies, and you can hear the progressions, even the note progressions of things that are Greek, Arabic, or Spanish. For example, you can hear certain things that sound like Spanish. So, all the music reflects the different cultures that occupied Sicily. 


I'll give you an idea. There's a song attributed to the fishermen who fish coral. It's a jumble—like a new language made up of Neapolitan and Sicilian lyrics. When the fishermen discovered these coral beds in Sicily, they brought the coral fishermen down from Naples because they had the skill. They taught the Sicilian fishermen how to fish this coral and worked side by side. They came up with their own language. 


So, in this song, you have a mixture of the two languages, the Neapolitan and the Sicilian, and some of the chants you hear. People will say, "That sounds very Middle Eastern."


Even some of the instruments that we play, some of the old forms of instruments that are very basic with minimal strings, are very Middle Eastern. They all filtered in through the great migrations. And if we get really into the diasporas and how they float about, you can start seeing some traditions. You can start seeing similarities to India when the Roma people came through from India. 


Music is a historical document because you can hear that in the melodies, chord progressions, structures, and song structures. You can hear that and say, "Oh yeah, this is very much like Spanish," or "This is very much Middle Eastern." We share some rhythms with North Africa, too. That kind of stuff. It's just a blueprint—a blueprint for history. 

 

You spoke about fishing. Tell us about the songs of the tuna fishermen.

I've recorded a version of one of the cialome they would sing for the matanza. Those are really fascinating songs. They try to trace a lot of the words like cialome.

 

They say, "Well, it could possibly be Arab." But they think it even predates the Arab invasion. That is a tradition that's really buried in antiquity. They can't pinpoint where that exactly started. That's how ancient that tradition is. And it's a beautiful tradition because it's much deeper than just the hunt of the tuna. It was very much something that was obviously connected to the cycle of the seasons because it was the fish's mating season when they were coming through, and humans were attuned to this. And it wasn't just that they killed the fish; these chants they used all had a purpose.


Some were used to pull up the nets, and some were used to pull the boats out of the water.

 

The one I sing is very fun. They talk about a young girl, and it's an homage to that beautiful young girl. But in a lot of the fishing chants, they say things like, "God bless the earth and sky. God bless the sea. God bless the tuna that's giving its life for us."


There's such a visceral connection and a very close connection between humanity and the animal kingdom in this. And there's this show of reverence. A bounty that year meant they would survive, and they were grateful that God had given them this bounty.


They were also grateful to the tuna who sacrificed their lives. And it's actually a very brutal tradition. But life was very brutal. We forget that. 


We look at the matanza and say, "Oh, it was so horrible, these men clubbing these fish to death and butchering these fish." But that was probably the least brutal thing that was happening to those people in their lifetime at that time. 


Out of that tradition for work came these beautiful songs because they needed a rhythm. These men, groups of men (dozens and dozens of men) had to work together. So, the best way to work in unison is to create a melody that everybody can maintain. So there's a lot of that in this tradition of music where these beautiful, beautiful traditions have evolved out of necessity.


So, the necessity for survival, the necessity to work together, and the necessity for recognizing your blessings all came together and created these beautiful songs. We have these songs not only because they were recorded in the 1950s when Alan Lomax went through Sicily and recorded but also because the tuna matanza ended around the 1980s, so we still had people who were singing. 

 

There's still a lot of mystery involved in that. But I don't think they could have that tradition without music because of the necessity, again, of how these men had to work together.

 

It creates community. And that's something that I try to always mention in my shows, too, that this music comes from the traditional community. It was a time when everybody sang. We all made music together for a lot of reasons. But it comes from a very communal place. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so well received: it is something that we all share, and it's something that we can all share, and it's meant to be shared and enjoyed together.

 

What do you hope your audiences and students take away from their experience?

I just want them to have a wonderful connection with Sicily and a discovery of Sicily. I would divide the audience into people who have a connection and have some roots in Sicily and those who don't. They have similar experiences, but not necessarily always the same. For some people in the audience, this is the first time they've ever heard Sicilian music. So, I want them to understand that there is a huge body of music. There's a huge patrimonial tradition that is just waiting to be explored and understood. And I want them to feel like they're part of it. That's the most important thing. 


When they have roots in Sicily, I want the same for them. But I also want them to understand that this is your heritage and tradition and belongs to you. It is part of you, and it will always be part of you, and it's a really good thing to have as a part of you. It's something that is solid, lasting, and good. There's nothing negative about it. 


We might not have the same heritage, but we all have the same human emotions and can relate to that. I've had people come up to me after the show and say, "I don't know any Sicilian. I don't know what the heck you're saying when you're singing, but I felt everything."


If I can give people that feeling of belonging, that feeling of being understood and heard, then I think I've succeeded. 


I have always felt that I wanted this for Sicily as well. I want Sicily to be understood. I want people to understand that, yes, Sicily is beautiful. Yes, the food is fantastic. But Sicily is so much deeper than that. She's been around a long time, and she's not going away. And she's got a lot to offer. There are so many aspects of Sicily that are so rich, and we can look at that.

 

 

 

 

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