Music

Friuli has unique characteristics thanks to the different histories, cultures, languages and ethnic groups that have met and intermingled there.

Over the past decades, this multifaceted tapestry has provided fertile ground for the development of a kind of music that is equally rich and diversified. Within it can still be found the traces of the area’s rural past and its oral tradition, together with the artistic musical experimentation that often takes its cue from the area’s cultural roots in implicit acknowledgment of their importance.

Contemporary Friulian music is influenced by a number of musical models that have become popular over the past forty years, ranging from “Italian melodies” and the works produced by singer-songwriters, to the so-called folk revival and political song-books. An interesting recent development are the Gnove musiche furlane, which emerged in the 1990s and comprise various genres: the singer-songwriter song, the ethnofolk-rock, ethnic jazz and the latest rock, rap and electronic trends. 

This has been a fruitful period in which songs, music and musicians have provided a key contribution to contemporary Friulian culture, helping to give it a focus on the present through events that have led the local language, history and culture to converse with their counterparts from further afield on equal terms.

Among the projects supported by Agenzia Regionale per la Lingua Friulana is the “Suns” anthology of new Friulian music, whose four volumes include a selection of the best local music from the 1990s to 2015. Each volume has an introduction providing further information regarding the history of music in the Friulian language.

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