I Beddi – Folk Music from Sicily

I Beddi are a prize winning folk music group from Sicily which was founded in 2005 by Sicilian musicians Davide “Tamburo di Aci” Urso and Simona Di Gregorio.

I Beddi’s songs are in a mixture of Sicilian dialect and Italian. The group’s most recent album “E falla bedda la ninnaredda – canti e cunti del Natale siciliano” – “Sweet Dreams – Sicilian Christmas songs and tales” came out in 2012.

Today I Beddi are guitarist Mimì Sterrantino, flautist and accordion player Giampaolo Nunzio, double bassist, Pier Paolo Alberghini and tambourine man, Davide “Tamburo di Aci” Urso – one of the group’s founders. Simona Di Gregorio left in 2008, but luckily, I Beddi played on.

In 2007 the group did an Italy and world tour visiting a number of Italian regions and countries as diverse as Austria, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Tunisia, and Malta. I Beddi also took their jaunty brand of Sicilian music as far a field as Malaysia.

Also in 2007, I Beddi recorded the sound track for a documentary on Sicily’s many baroque treasures.

In 2010, the track Tarantella Blues won I Beddi first prize in Sicily’s New Sicilian Song Festival. The group returned to Malaysia in 2010 where they presented their SICILIAZERO album at the Rainforest World Music Festival.

Here’s I Beddi’s prize winning track

Tarantella Blues

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAGoI19wezQ[/youtube]

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

Next, complete with pretty Sicilian dancing girls, here’s the I Beddi music video…

…A la fera di li paroli

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfAJK7nzLk0[/youtube]

You can here more of I Beddi’s music on their website: I Beddi Videos

You can also find I Beddi on Facebook.

Fun, aren’t they? :)

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With thanks to Mariella Caruso and Sanne de Boer for their help in translating “E falla bedda la ninnaredda – canti e cunti del Natale siciliano” via Twitter. My Sicilian dialect is not too hot, I have to admit!

PS I think “beddi” might be “donkeys” in English.

Chad

+Alex Roe is from the UK, but has lived and worked in Milan, Italy, for many years. Alex has been interviewed by the BBC on Italy issues. He tweets news and information about Italy to over 37,000 Twitter followers via @newsfromitaly on Twitter.