Achille Lauro records a sound picture at the Taranto Archaeological Museum

Achille Lauro, the pop star of all the last editions of the Sanremo festivals, has been in artistic residency at the National Archaeological Museum in Taranto and has produced a work entitled La Grande Madre: it is one of the “Sound Pictures” of the Orchestra of Magna Graecia, works that merge music, visual arts, and performance. The Great Mother was recorded yesterday with the Magna Grecia Orchestra, in formation with 30 professors, and conducted by Maestro Piero Romano, creator, among others, of the Sound Pictures project. The inspiration came from an encounter with the Veneri of Parabita, female statuettes celebrating the fertility cult and dating back to the Upper Paleolithic around 20,000 years ago. “These are representations of women characterized by a particular emphasis on female attributes,” said Eva Degli Innocenti, director of the MarTA, “and they may have played, depending on the contexts of their discovery and use, different roles. While the symbolic or ritual aspect connected to their iconography remains enigmatic, the idea, however, that they are to be related to a fertility cult seems the most likely and most shared by scholars.”

And this is the theme that particularly struck Achille Lauro, who started from these considerations to celebrate the rhythm and cycle of life. There are four artistic moments in which the work can be considered: Lauro was in charge of music and creative direction, Piero Romano of artistic-musical direction, Valter Silviotti of prchestration and U.T. Gandhi of percussion. Four, then, musical rhythms corresponding to the stages of life as in Achille Lauro’s vision.

“We started with a main theme,” Achille Lauro recounted, “which evolves throughout the 15-minute piece. There is the evolution of life in 4 blocks: the beginning-that is, the birth. And for the first 3, 4 minutes you have the feeling that the music becomes the motherly embrace associated with a gentle theme. Then the music changes, evolves as life changes. And the idea is related to the encounter at the Museum with an emblematic figure of MArTa the Athlete of Taranto, a symbol of overcoming challenges. In this second block, then, the music becomes compelling and from the sweetness of the melody it moves to a more pressing rhythm. Then there is the third phase that, following the theme of. Maturity of life that from its poetry reserves complex moments, turns into music that embraces a darker feeling to, then, conclude with a return to the origin, to life returning, to rebirth, with the musical theme of the beginning repeating itself in a sort of catharsis.”

“The one with Lauro,” said Piero Romano, “is a collaboration born in the Covid period, which has evolved over time and last summer became a national tour in which the orchestra accompanied the band. Thanks to this collaboration, the orchestra comes out with a great wealth of new experience. Today, however, it consolidates a relationship born with Taranto, leaving a trace that will forever remain the heritage of the City, of the Museum, but allow me, this work linked to the National Museum of Taranto is the heritage of humanity.”

With the recording of this Sound Framework by Achille Lauro (which is the fourth in order of time after those made with Remo Anzovino, for the Gran Madre di Dio Co-cathedral, John Rutter, for the Cathedral of San Cataldo, and Dario Marianelli for the MArTA), the the virtual music tour project that the Orchestra of Magna Graecia, with the support of the Municipality of Taranto, the Apulia Region, the Archdiocese and MArTa is building ahead of the Mediterranean Games.

“Through music and thanks to these influential collaborations Taranto is enriched with an intangible heritage of great value,” concludes culture councillor Fabiano Marti. “The Sound Paintings immediately project us into a future made of innovative marketing at the service of the community with the hope of making the City more and more attractive to increasingly varied targets.”

Achille Lauro records a sound picture at the Taranto Archaeological Museum

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