Peppe Voltarelli ‐
La grande corsa verso Lupionópolis (Visage
Music, 2023)
“La grande corsa verso Lupionópolis”
is the seventh studio album by Italian songwriter Peppe Voltarelli, released by
the record label Visage Music on 26 May 2023. The Calabrian songwriter presents
a collection of songs recorded in New York by Marc Urselli (three Grammy Awards
and collaborations with Lou Reed, Nick Cave, and U2) at Manhattan’s historic East
Side Sound, and artistically produced and arranged by Los Angeles-based Italian
producer/keyboard player Simone Giuliani (to his credit, productions with Andrea
Bocelli and the London Symphony Orchestra). The album, which contains ten tracks
including eight songs in Calabrian dialect, one in Italian, and an instrumental
waltz, was recorded in February 2023 and features musicians of international
calibre such as Devin Hoff (double bass), Jake Owen (guitar), Stephane San Juan
(drums), Mauro Refosco (percussions), and the participation of Eleanor Norton
(cello), Doug Wieselman (saxophone and clarinet), and Amy Denio (vocals). The
record is accompanied by the music videos of the songs “Nun signu sulu mai”, shot
in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighbourhood and directed by Giacomo Triglia (Brunori
Sas, Jovanotti, Lucio Dalla, Måneskin), and “Au
cinéma”, directed by Lele Nucera and made with the actors and
workers of the Calabria Film School. The album
entered the five finalists for the Tenco Award in the category best album in
dialect, placing second in the final ranking, and won the City of Loano
National Award for Traditional Italian Music as best album of 2023.
Peppe Voltarelli is a Calabrian singer,
songwriter, actor and writer. He has been active since 1990 as the founding
voice and leader of Il parto delle nuvole pesanti, a cult Italian new
folk band. As a solo artist, he has released seven studio albums, four soundtracks, and two concerts. He won the prestigious Tenco Award three times, with “Ultima notte a Malá Strana” in 2010 as best album in dialect, with “Voltarelli canta Profazio” in 2016, and with “Planetario” in 2021, both as best performer album. He was the lead actor and co-writer of the film “The true legend of Tony Vilar”
by Giuseppe Gagliardi, the first Italian mokumentary. He boasts collaborations
with Claudio Lolli, Teresa De Sio, Silvio Rodríguez, Adriana Varela, Kevin
Johansen, Sergio Cammariere, Otello Profazio, Roy Paci, Carmen Consoli, and Bandabardò. His intense concert activity has led him to play in
23 countries around the world and his records have been released in Europe,
Argentina, Canada, and the United States.
