MARIO CRISPI

Born, in Palermo, Sicily, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, a place of trade, of arts and culture, where you can still hear the Arab influence in the local music. This geographical dimension has shaped the character of Mario. During adolescence, he was in love with the music of the New World (the Andes and South America) through the archaic wind instruments.
When she was 13 years old, he founded the band Agricantus (which will become famous since the mid-90s) and he began his nomadic journey with music that will take him around the world to gather stories, instruments, music and human experiences. From the Andes he is then returned to southern Italy and its traditions, through extensive research into ethnomusicology, both with the Sicilian Ethnophonic Archive, the Folkstudio of Palermo, the Institute for Folk Traditions of the University of Palermo, and the Museum of Folk Traditions of Nuoro, in Sicily, Sardinia, Puglia. From this moment on Mario no longer has abandoned the size of research and in fact he has visited Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan, Kenya, in the desire to trace his "past lives" that emerge every time he plays one of the instruments from these countries. Mario enjoys often remembered to be a true Sicilian, an authentic Mediterranean and to have Sardinian, Tuscan, Spanish, Albanian roots.
His musical history is inextricably linked to Agricantus, of which he is founder and basic soul, and with which he toured the world, he has realized tours in Europe, Brasil, Israel, Syria, Hong Kong, participating to International Festivals, he has recorded dozens of records and compilations (Buddha Bar vol. IV, Nirvana Lounge and so on).
In 1999 the album Best of Agricantus was released in the States with the label "World Class", who distribute it not only in the States but also in Canada, South America, Australia and Japan. In just a few weeks it rose to the top of American and Australian radio charts.
Besides Agricantus productions, he have also developed the multimedia side of his artistic works, composing for theatre and dance shows, surrounding sonorizations, and composing soundtracks:
- Jung: On the Land Of the Mujaeddin by A.Vendemmiati and F. Lazzaretti (Silver Wolf Award 2000 at IDFA Amsterdam)
- Afghanistan: Collateral effects by A.Vendemmiati and F. Lazzaretti
- Sanpeet [Poison] by G. Petitto and G. Pulcini (Unicef Award Rome Independent Film Festival, Daunbailo’ Award Genova Film Festival).
As coauthor and interpreter he has participated in various soundtrack (such as Hotel Rwanda, by Terry George, Steam by Ferzan Ozpetek), and in record productions in the fields of traditional, world and trance music working with various artists.
In 2007 he has participated to the Juakali Drummers Project conceived by Giovanni Lo Cascio within the AMREF rehabilitation program “Children in need” in Nairobi, Kenya. Juakali Drummers is a Dulcimer Fondation pour la Musique and AMREF permanent project to rescue children from the streets through music education.
He performes as soloist in various Italian and international Festivals (such as Theatron Musikommer Munich - Germany, Kals’Art Palermo - Italy, La Notte della Taranta - Italy, September Concert Rome Edition, Sete Soys y Sete Luas – Italy), two different musical projects with his winds instruments, the first totally acoustic and the other which digs deep into the world of wind instruments and of technology. In 2006 he has been invited in Pakistan, at the World Performing Arts Festival of Lahore, in quality of representative for Italy.
He is author and artistic director of the Festival Paesaggi di Suoni (www.paesaggidisuoni.it).
In 2000 he has recorded the CD Soffi as soloist and in 2009 Arenaria (Sandstone) is the new project.

“The houses and monuments in the historical centre of Palermo, are made of sandstone. It is a sedimentary stone rich in fossils and traces of bygone seas, its origins told through deep varied geological layers deposited over the centuries. It’s a stone that is lend to being worked, dug, modeled. It’s a stone with which realizing gorges and caverns, tombs and mausoleum and in which the idea of sedimentation, a symbol of the incessant march of time, fixes moments as they pass, as well as assigning them a memory of a million years into the future. For a Sicilian born and bred the sediment has a meaning that goes beyond the geological: the song of a peasant from the Sicilian hinterland; the sounds of a market; the words and the rhythms of the language of speech and recitation, that reveal humanity traces, echoes of other continents and other times.
There is a continuous overlap, that forms an indissoluble link between the territories crossed on my paths as a nomad as I travelled the world (which permitted me to meet other travelling companions with whom to share my journeys, places, concepts, sounds) and the constant search for tracks to read and to leave behind, for experiences, f