DUBAI, 11 January 2022 – Italian folk dancers (‘tarantella d’amore’) and saltarelli (a dancing couple), accompanied by traditional Italian and Arabian musical instruments, entertained visitors at the Dubai Millennium Amphitheatre at Expo 2020 on Tuesday evening, during a performance by The Orchestra Popolare Italiana (OPI), directed by famed Italian accordionist Ambrogio Sparagna.
OPI were joined by three Emirati musicians to take the audience on a journey into the alluring folk music of Lazio, in central Italy, highlighting Expo’s cultural diversity.
Sparagna, one of the most important figures in contemporary Italian ethnic music, created a lively mood with the OPI ensemble using instruments like the zampogna bagpipe, shawm woodwind instrument, tambourines, mandolins, violins, chitarre battente (four or five-stringed guitars), and hurdy-gurdies (Medieval wheel instruments) among others, while the Emiratis played their oud and qanun Arabian stringed instruments.
