The membership of the band varies depending on the event! At the Illawarra Folk Festival where the band has performed for the last 8 years it swells to 15 or more! The core of the band is:
David De Santi - piano accordion
Tania De Santi - piano
Samuel De Santi - percussion, including the triccheballache!
Mark Holder-Keeping - saxophone, clarinet
Ann Lehmann - bouzouki
Miffy Ryan - violin
James Twyford - bass
Perla Aura - percussion
Johnny Spillane - whistles
David and Mark are playing with Melbourne musicians Kavisha Mazzella and Irini Vela as The Viaggiatori as part of a live music presentation with the Italian silent film Dall' Italia All' Australia.
Influences
La Ciapa Rusa [] Nuova Compagnia Di Canto Popolare [] Renzo Arbore [] Claudio Villa [] Eugnennio Bennato and Musica Nova
Sounds Like
Musica Nova [] Nuova Compagnia Di Canto Popolare (without the words!)
Zumpa is a collective of acoustic folk musicians in the Illawarra region of New South Wales reviving old Italian folk tunes and songs with new vigour and creativity. The core of the group is David De Santi, a first generation Italo Australian. David plays the piano accordion and is a collector of obscure tunes amongst being a festival director, member of the bush band Wongawilli and music publisher. David’s parents came from Vallo Della Lucania in Campania in the 1960s.
The band membership is flexible with at times up to 10 musicians but as a minimum usually 6 - accordion, saxophone, clarinet, piano, bouzouki, whistle, violin and percussion. The music, performed in an instrumental manner, includes original and traditional tarantellas, old Italian pop and folk songs and tunes.
’Zumpà’ is a Neapolitan dialect word meaning to mean ‘jump’. As in most translations of non-English words it’s not quite the right meaning. It is more related to the feeling of dancing with elation, jumping around happily. It is an appropriate description of what some of the music might do for that lurking inner Mediterranean spirit!
