Olivia Sellerio

In concert all the songs that Olivia has written and performed for Il commissario Montalbano and Il giovane Montalbano II It happens that Olivia was born and raised between books, and comes from an island where still resonates the call left to humanity by the Greek tragedy, and that in this enchanted, raw and mestizo place he has decided to live; it happens that he has a voice, and a voice in the chapter, in his very special chapter, and heart of paper and blood of ink to write songs, like these pages of life, Who calls together and sings in his Zara Zabara. In the songs of the singer-songwriter from Palermo, once again able to transform story and feeling into music, coexist Mediterranean atmospheres, sounds of the Atlantic, dust of Africa and American folk, In his voice full of reminiscences and careful words the stories are intertwined with the Sicilian melos and a thousand roots of other ways and worlds, to make a shuttle between Sicily and elsewhere. Stories of love, departure and resistance, denunciation, reception sung by his magnetic voice, dark, visceral, a matrioska voice that contains many. In live, to accompany the singing of Olivia, Paolo Pellegrino with noble cello sound, the pulsion of the double bass of Alberto Fidone with the guitars of Lino Costa and Dario Salerno- different depending on the mood of the song – in a dense network of melodic lines; a mixture of strings and bows to dialogue with the wise effects of the electric guitar, an acoustic-electronic agreement to promote the meeting of the most current sounds with those of the cultured or popular tradition, whether the themes of extra-European origin, Jazz or music of the second twentieth century.

Olivia Sellerio was born and lives in Palermo for years divided between books and music. She grows in love for stories and the pleasure of sharing them that becomes a craft, inherits “heart of paper and ink blood”, and it is this beat, this breath, to move first his voice, the desire to make himself through a story, witness of songs that I tell are twice, of music and words. A journey that starts in Sicily and soon leads through other genres and places of music, crosses the borders with new disruptive encounters, but in Sicily more than often reports. For years committed to renew the musical tradition of his land, his work today is a mosaic in which coexist interpretations of recognizable jazz with Mediterranean and African vocals, Latin American and Neolatine, which merge into an unprecedented meeting, a work of research and synthesis that accords languages and musical genres, the different worlds interpreted by Olivia in time, combining them with each other and the Sicilian melos, from the international successes of “Accabbanna”, which in 2005 signed in four hands with Pietro Leveratto, fascinating and unique mix between Sicilian folk singing and jazz author, which brings it on the big stages of the national and international scene, to the songs that since 2014 writes and sings for the series of the commissioner of Vigàta collected and published by Warner Music in Zara Zabara. For her works in Sicilian language, Olivia has received: Special Award “Donna di scena” 2006; Prize Woman in Jazz 2006; Premio Rosa Balistreri – Alberto Favara 2013; Efebo d’Oro Award for New Languages for Music 2015; Mediterranean Women’s Prize for the Performing Arts 2018; A.N.D.E. Prize 2018; Golden Mimosa Award 2021.