Multietnica
Friday, 7 December , 2007 – 15:54http://www.multietnica.org
Person in charge: Nico Ferri
Multietnica Cultural Association works in Basilicata and organizes “Pollino Music Festival” in San Severino Lucano (Pz). There are two full-time workers, other four people are casual workers and there are about other 20 cooperating with them during summer.
Activities and Projects
The association mostly works for:
• the organization of “Pollino Music Festival” (born as “EtnoPollino” in 1996, it started enclosing different kind of music in 2001) and other events, such as “Terme Live” in Latronico and the brand new “Metaponto Beach Festival”. The “Pollino Music Festival” can count on an usual audience coming from all parts of Italy (6.000/10.000 people in three days) and on the most important artists of the national musical scene. A lot of local bands have used, and still use, this event to get in touch with the national record market.
• the scouting activity of young local bands (developed through to the annual selection for Arezzo Wave – now called Italia Wave- rock contest);
• local bands management (for example “Krikka Reggae” from Bernalda, that are imposing themselves among the most interesting bands of national reggae scene, also using their dialect for the lyrics);
• the production activity of various compilations and video clips of emerging local bands (Basilicata Music Net), like the very recent CD by Krikka Reggae (“Nà Soluzion”, produced in collaboration with Etnagigante/V2 and distributed on the national scale by Edel) that boasts of the artistic supervision and participation of Roy Paci;
• the vocational training activity, realized in an independent way through the use of short-list funds, such as the organization of training courses for emerging bands, most of which have been involved in Italia Wave contest. Multietnica has also organized - in cooperation with Gal Alba and Legambiente and thanks to the help of Vocational Training bodies and the support of “Culture in Loco” funds - a training course for 16 young people about the organization of cultural events.
Market and sources of income
San Severino Municipality invests in “Pollino Music Festival”, while Basilicata Region and other local bodies play only a marginal role. The scouting activity of young local bands is not always financed, although it takes place since more than 10 years with remarkable visibility and tangible results within the Region. Multietnica succeed in obtaining funds for their projects, participating in a culture short-list and in “Culture in Loco” call for proposal.
The management and recording production activities are both self-financed, with many difficulties, through the concerts and the marketing of the outputs.
Problems and hindrances to the growth
One of the most urgent problems is to communicate and to find interlocutors among regional bodies, able to understand both the importance of a far-seeing scheduling of events and the cultural, social and formative value of the scouting activity of young local bands, annually realized since 1997. There’s also a lack of participation by the side of Basilicata Region during the planning and the promotion phases of “Pollino Music Festival”, even if it has reached its 13th edition. This participation is fundamental because, even if San Severino Municipality invests a lot in the festival, it’s almost impossible to fill up the deficiency of the services necessary to the event like, for example, the arrangement of equipped and properly policed camping areas or shuttles to reach the concerts.
Multietnica proposed some of the Municipalities of the same area a cooperation to organize an itinerant “Pollino Music Festival”, but they decided to organize music events on their own.
Multietnica activities seem to have rooted in local policies for the organization of events able to appeal a wide audience; at the same time the proliferation of music contests for emerging bands (Pollino Fusion, Camastra Sound, Tolve Live,…..) and the increasing number of the bands themselves show that Multietnica activities have encouraged creativity, cultural production and aggregation, together with the organization of other matching circumstances for young musicians of Basilicata.
