Maria Mazzotta – Amoreamaro

Her intense and deep interpretation is a rare and precious experience for the audience and it is what makes Maria Mazzotta one of the most appreciated voices in the European word music scene. Naturally ranging from south Italian textures to Balcanic grooves, the repertoire that Maria Mazzotta proposes comes from meticulous research and extreme respect for the cultures that compose it, with a special focus on the vocal characteristics of the different traditions.

Since January 2020, when she released her first solo album “Amoreamaro”, Maria Mazzotta started a non‐stop tour, traveling thousands of kilometres and performing more than 300 concerts among 25 different countries at least: from the Theatre de la Ville in Paris to the Müpa in Budapest, from La Cité de la Musique in Marseille to the ORF Kulturhaus in Wien, from WOMEX in Porto to OFFest in Skopje, from Festival de Musica del Mundo in Bogotà to the Festival de Musica Sacra in Quito, and many more.
An intense and passionate reflection, from a female point of view, on the various faces of love: from the biggest love to the most desperate and very tender one, and from the type that becomes unhealthy to the one that is possessive and abusive. This is “Amoreamaro” (Bitter Love), the album by Maria Mazzotta.
Ten tracks in all, two of which are unpublished, that fearlessly pass through all the emotions that this feeling can arouse, with the song as a vehicle for catharsis, consolation, strength, and as a “cure”, which is so very typical of popular tradition. They range from little ditties to traditional songs rearranged and enriched with new sounds and words, up to the milestones that paved the way of the great Italian song like “Lu pisci Spada” (“The Swordfish”) by Domenico Modugno, “Tu non mi piaci più” (“I Don’t Like You Anymore”) made successful by Gabriella Ferri, and “Rosa canta e cunta” (“Rosa Sings and Recounts”) by the great Sicilian singer-songwriter Rosa Balistreri.

But the heart of the album can be found in the two unpublished works sung in the dialect of the Salento area: “Nu me lassare” (“Don’t Leave Me”), a painful ballad dedicated to love, an imploring lament to those who no longer exist; and the title track “Amoreamaro” – in the pizzica music style, which is also a dance -there is a rhythm traditionally played for healing the “tarantolate” (women who were supposedly bitten by a tarantula spider which was once thought to cause a form of hysteric behavior) which ideally aims to heal a sick world.

Maria Mazzotta’s concert is a suggestive show to be fully lived, letting yourself be accompanied and led by a unique interpreter.