The latest SEA and YOU concert in Naples concluded at the Teatro Galleria Toledo. A journey that began in November in Granada, continued in Porto in February, and now culminated in the Neapolitan city during the April 25th holiday, making it one of the most beautiful musical events in Naples in April.
It’s been a long journey, beginning almost a year and a half ago.
A project that required a lot of work, commitment, and perseverance from the three associations that organized the first festival on European traditional music.
When the European funding was officially announced, thanks to the European Agenda for Music, it was as if all things fell into place automatically.
SEA and YOU in Naples was the culmination of a magical journey, starting from the mountains of Andalusia, traveling throughout the Mediterranean, and arriving in Naples.
A journey that aimed to focus on the magic of traditional Mediterranean music above all else. A music capable of uniting peoples beyond borders, full of life, soul, and hope.
What does SEA and YOU leave us with? The value of unity!
We’re not exaggerating by saying that with SEA and YOU, the true values of music have found new vitality.
Traditional music, whether Spanish, Portuguese, or Neapolitan, is about conviviality, the joy of being together. It’s about dancing until you sweat, like in Flamenco, singing with passion, like in Fado, or expressing your emotions, as in Neapolitan songs.
The most beautiful and emotional part of SEA and YOU was the unity that was created among artists from different nations. All the hugs, laughter, moments spent together visiting Naples with the capere tour or dining and singing together in a traditional Neapolitan osteria are the real joys of this traditional music festival.
The proof of this unity was the last song sung by all the artists on stage. Each with their own style, each with their own background, led by Mr. Pasquale Cirillo.
The unity seen SEA and YOU in Naples, Porto, or Granada is something that goes beyond being colleagues on stage. It’s a friendship that was created despite the distance, a friendship that was nurtured day after day, living the experiences of Granada, Porto, and Naples as adventures to expand their cultural baggage as artists and musicians, but also to broaden their horizons, encountering new cultures, new people, and new ways of thinking.
SEA and YOU in Naples
The SEA and YOU concert in Naples was a resounding success!
The most important newspapers talked about it (Il Mattino and La Repubblica, just to name a few), it was presented on television by Domenico Matania, president, accordionist, and co-founder of Napulitanata, and on the radio with the company of Gianni Simioli, designated presenter of the SEA and YOU concert in Naples. A strong and disruptive presence that has been fighting for years to promote the beauties of the city of Naples through the famous radio program La Radiazza.
It couldn’t have been anyone but a person with this artistic sensibility to host the SEA and YOU concert in Naples. A person who, like Napulitanata for seven years, has been striving to bring Neapolitan art and music to the place it deserves, namely the top!
If in Andalusia tablao are the homes of Flamenco, and in Porto you can enjoy Fado in fado houses, Naples was missing a stable venue to listen to classical Neapolitan songs.
In the city of music par excellence, which has exported the most famous songs to the world, there was a lack of a place that would enhance Neapolitan song. Thanks to Napulitanata, today Naples has its classical Neapolitan song hall, and thanks to Napulitanata, the project of the SEA and YOU festival of Mediterranean traditional songs was launched in Naples, Porto, and Granada.
A concert that began with the art of Maestro Enzo Gragnaniello, who wanted to pay tribute to Napulitanata, Ideal Fado, and CajaGranada by opening the SEA and YOU concert in Naples, and ended with all the artists singing together on the same stage.
To all the viewers who followed us from Porto, Granada, and Naples, to all the collaborators, and to everyone who believed in this traditional music project, we want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts, because it’s thanks to you that music can continue to live.
By Davide Lancia