Catharsis through Music

April 9, 2025 by Jeff Spitzer-Resnick

Recently, Hejira world music radio show host Jeff Spitzer-Resnick interviewed Mauro Durante. Following is a lightly edited (for clarity) transcript of the interview

JSR:   I’ve got Mauro Durante here with me. That was Balla Nina from CGS‘ latest album, Meridiana. How are you doing, Mauro? I know you just flew in last night. You must be tired.

MD:       I’m fine. We are happy to be back here to the States.

JSR:       Good. All right, the first thing I need to do, because I speak a little Italian, I’m sure I botched your band’s name. Please tell our listeners, CGS. Say it out in Italian.

MG:       Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino

JSR:       Thank you.

MG:       Don’t worry. They get it wrong, even in Italy.

JSR:       Does it have a meaning? I mean, it sounds like Song and Greek and Salentino. Am I making that up or not?

MG:       No, you got it right. Because “canzoniere”  means “song book.” So basically, it’s “Grecanico Salentino song book” where Grecanico refers to this area in the core of Salento, where we come from and the south of Puglia, where they speak an ancient dialect, which is of Greek origin called Grecanico and Salentino means from Salento where we’re from.

JSR:       Got it. Now you’re playing tonight in Chicago. Is that right?

MG:       Yeah, at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

JSR:       Nice, I don’t know if we have any Chicago listeners. I know we’ve got nearly a hundred people streaming, so maybe some of them are from Chicago, maybe some of them are from Italy. Who knows? But there’s a long history to this band, right? This is your 50th anniversary tour, right?

MG:       Yeah, the band was founded back in 1975 by Rina Durante, who was a writer, and a scholar. She was a crucial she founded the band as well as Daniele Durante and Rosella Pinto, my parents and Roberto Licci, the father of one of the current members of the band. So, it’s a family history, you know. 50 years later, we’re a second generation of the band.  We’re still going on now.

JSR:       I had read that you’re the Musical Director now, right?

MG:       Yeah, since 2007.

JSR:       Before that was your father the Musical Director.

MG:       Correct.

JSR:       That is incredible that you have this long family line, but I didn’t know that your mother was in the band too. What did she play?

MD:       She’s a singer. She’s still alive. She’s not part of the band.  My mother and father are still alive. The other three founders are not alive anymore.

JSR:       Did you say she’s still in the band?

MD:       No, she’s not in the band. Although for in some special occasions and celebrations, this year, she’ll be part of the show with Roberto Licci, one of the other founders.

JSR:       So, I do want to talk more about the band, but I also want to talk about you. In addition to musical director, you play a lot of different instruments. Isn’t that right? What do you play?

MG:       Well, I play violin. I also play tambourines which belong to the broader family of frame drums. They’re hand drums, right? So, yes, I play a few.  Frame drums and tambourines, but mostly my two main instruments are violin and tambourines. I can play a little bit of guitar. I compose music, but in the band, there is Giulio Bianco who is a way more impressive multi-instrumentalist because he plays bagpipes, recorders, whistles, bass clarinet, harmonica, it’s like a never-ending list.

JSR:       I don’t know if you were here, but apparently, I missed the show, but a friend of mine told me that CGS played in Madison, and it was part of a world music festival some time ago.

MG:       Yeah, I think two or three times actually.

JSR:       Hopefully you’ll come back one day. I’d love to see you here. The music that you play, is called Pizzica? Can you explain to our audience what is that?

MD:       Yeah. Pizzica music. What you said was pretty accurate because our most famous and dancey style, it’s called pizzica, which is a music and dance style. Pizzica belongs to the Tarantella music style. It’s our peculiar local Puglian style which is called pizzica. It could be used in a joyful function. But also, there was this fascinating ritual called Tarantism where pizzica used to have a healing function, like healing music and that was to cure the victims of the Tarantula spider bite. It was a symbolic ritual made to get rid of your own demons through music, dance, and mostly the active participation of a whole community who would gather around with suffering to cure them.

JSR:       Interesting. So, what can people in Chicago expect to see? Will it be music from your last album, Meridiana, that we played a song from. I’ll play one more after we’re done. Or are you going to go through the whole 50-year history of CGS?

MD:        There will be songs from Meridiana but, also songs taken from other albums, songs from under my direction of the band. We will also play some small jewels taken really from the past to celebrate our 50th anniversary. So, it’s going to mostly a rhytmical and rousing show, but also with moments of intimate connections.

JSR:       I want to shift now towards when I saw you live at WOMEX and I was very close. I got right up to the stage you with you and Justin Adams and it was such a fantastic show. I want to tell you in a minute after I ask this next question about a comment the woman next to me said, because it was very touching. But first tell me how you ended up collaborating with Justin Adams on a fantastic album, by the way, Sweet Release, which we’ll play some of, and was on my best of world music from last year. I really think it’s a great album. But how did you get together with Justin?

MD:       Well, thank you so much first of all. I met Justin in back in 2011 because he was invited to be a guest in a festival which is held every year in my region, which is called La Notte della Taranta. He was one of the guests and the Director of the festival that year was Ludovico Ennaudi, Italian pianist and composer was his right hand. We invited Justin Adams with his bandmates at the time. Juldeh Camara from Gambia was a guest for that big show and that’s where we met. There is this very interesting moment, and we always like to tell people where they came into the space where we were actually playing and rehearsing. The moment they came, we basically waved each other hello and we just started jamming together even before talking much and what we can I say? Justin and I haven’t stopped playing together since that time. So, we stayed in touch and then we decided to try a project of our own introduced in 2021, and now we are still going.

JSR:       I’m glad to hear that you’re still playing with him. It was a great show. It’s a great album. But here’s what I wanted to tell you. First of all, the space, I thought was fantastic. I don’t know if you saw any of the other shows, but there were two stages on either side of this big kind of warehouse, and so after you played, literally the stages turned, the people just go to the other side. I stayed there for four straight shows. I wish I could remember which song it was, but this woman who I do not know was listening to the music standing next to me. She was sobbing and she said, “this music, it’s just making me cry.” It was so emotional and moving. Maybe, even the title Sweet Release, it was a release for her.

MD:       Thank you for telling me. It was a really special and intense show because usually when you play in environments like WOMEX, you’re aware that it’s going to be an industry showcase, not a standard show. So, you’re prepared that people could leave during the show or come during the show. We’ve been doing that for a long time.

JSR:       They can be tough audiences.

MD:       I mean, you know that even if people are leaving, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like you. It could be like just that they saw enough, they like you and then they want to catch some other showcase, right? But in truth, what happened in Manchester back in October was amazing because it felt like a standard, amazing, beautiful show with the audience, really getting into it. We loved it. The idea of catharsis through music is one of the themes that gets me and Justin together to make music. We really believe that at the end of the day, what makes people connect and breathe together to rhythm, to the pounding beat of a tambourine? It’s like we are connecting our beating hearts. Those moments where you believe that you not alone are really powerful and that’s what we seek through our music- really to be together with people to give relief in those moments that we are sharing with the audience.

JSR:       Well, I can tell you, as I told you from this woman, it worked, and it worked on different levels. In fact, I think if I recall correctly, Justin said something about, and this was even before the American sociopath became our President, but it was looming and things I think have gotten even darker since then, how we really need this music and so much great music to connect us and kind of make it through these dark times. I’m curious, the songs on Sweet Release, sometimes they seem to be more your songs like, I think there may even be one pizzica song on there, and then there’s some that feel more like Justin’s. How did you guys collaborate on who was taking the lead on each song?

MD:       As I said earlier, we usually sit down and play music to each other. Sometimes it could be a groove or an atmosphere, a chord progression, anything. Once something that we propose works well for the two of us, and we feel like we belong together in that initial spark, then we keep on playing with that and building a song from that starting point. So, it’s not like a process of thinking and now we mix a pizzica with rock and roll. The idea is more like whatever makes the two of us comfortable and excited to play together. So, there might be songs that sound like more pizzica and songs that sound more like old blues. But that’s not the starting point. That’s usually the outcome-what people find and listen and discover in our music. But the process is the opposite. The music comes first. Rhythm, usually grooves come first and then we developed the songs starting from that.

JSR:       I love that it’s a true collaboration. I noticed there’s a few songs that you invited some guest singers.

MD:       Yes. There are three songs where we did that. One guest singer is Allessia Tondo one of my bandmates in Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino. Then we have, Yousra Mansour, she’s Moroccan from the band Bab L’Bluz. Then we have Felice Rosser from New York City on Tide Keeps Turning.

JSR:       Well, both you and Justin are real promoters of world music and collaborators with multi-nationalities, and I just love that and I think our audience does as well. Before we close out and I play one more CGS song and then two from Sweet Release, is there anything else, perhaps a message you have for our audience that you’d like to share before we close out?

MD:       Well, as you said, in these dark times, I think that every chance that we to get together and breathe together and dance together, sweat together, and in a way dance out of our own demons, we must seize those chances. So, let’s meet, let’s hold together. I think it’s really important to face everything which is going on at the moment, everywhere in the world as some sort of different kind of unity.

JSR:       I appreciate that, and I hope you have a great show tonight and for the rest of your tour. How many cities are you going to?

MD:       Chicago, Savannah in Georgia, Knoxville, Tennessee for the Big Ears Festival and New York City. Then we go back to Europe because we go to Hungary and Budapest next.

JSR:       Great. Well, I’m sure glad you’re still young because I’m sure that takes a lot of energy and I wish you a great tour and it was a pleasure to meet you and talk to you.