Music and Dance

Beside the respect of traditions, Occitan music reveals an extraordinary vivacity, being able to renew itself and to keep lively tanks to a large community of musicians often collaborating together and sharing experiences with innovative results. The most famous band is Lou Dalfin, founded in 1982 by Sergio Berardo, expressing an excellent fusion of traditional style with rock, jazz and reggae. Several other groups should be mentioned such as Gai Saber, Lou Seriol, Lhi Jarris and the singer-songwriters Masino Anghilante.
The song repertoire is shared by Occitan people all over the linguistic area. In particular, the song “Se Chanta” is considered the unofficial anthem of Occitania, although being a love song.
Among Occitan traditional musical instruments, the most representative is the hurdy-gurdy (vioula) employed all over Occitania. The hurdy-gurdy is a medieval stringed musical instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The hurdy-gurdy is played together with the violin, the diatonic button accordion (semitoun), more rarely with some ancient aerophonic instrument such as the bagpipe, or several types of wind instruments. All these instruments are widespread in the large geographic area going from Pyrenees to Apennines.
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