A symphony of sounds. Collaborative research in Accettura (Basilicata) before and after Covid-19

Abstract

This article focuses on the musical and sonic aspects of the Maggio festival, a ritual that takes place yearly in the village of Accettura, southern Italy. Following a concise general introduction to the festival, we proceed to discuss our fieldwork and output on the Maggio in chronological order. We begin by describing the soundscape composition of Steven Feld and the ‘ethnophony’ of Nicola Scaldaferri, realized during the first decade of the 2000s, which examine the festival from a ‘point of listening’. In 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we detail a new kind of collaboration between local interlocutors and researchers which resulted in the multimedia project Il Maggio del Silenzio as well as the construction of an online archive on Accettura. Lastly, the last two years of research in the post-COVID-19 period underscore the fundamental role of women in the festival through various experimental recording strategies.