On Saturday 21 March, a concert at the Ridotto del Teatro del Popolo marks the start of a series of events that will conclude in 2027, the centenary of her birth.
Through her songs, she gave a voice and dignity back to the poor, the oppressed and the marginalised. An extraordinary artist, with a voice described by Andrea Camilleri as “torn and heart-rending”, whose singing – “choked, dramatic and anguished – seemed to emerge, as the poet Ignazio Buttitta observed, from the parched earth of Sicily”. These are the words that best capture Rosa Balistreri, a charismatic figure in Sicilian cultural life and beyond, a performer of folk songs to whom the Municipality of Castelfiorentino will pay tribute from this spring onwards with a series of initiatives that will conclude next year to mark the centenary of her birth (1927–2027).
The first event is scheduled for Saturday 21 March at the Ridotto del Teatro del Popolo (4:30 pm) with the concert “Io sono voce”, organised by the “Sanguemisto” theatre company (free admission). On stage, Ilaria Savini (who has been performing Balistreri’s repertoire in Italy for many years) and Rocco Giorgi (guitar, who played alongside Rosa for many years) will perform some of the singer’s most famous songs. In the late 1980s, Balistreri also lived in Castelfiorentino after spending much of her life in Florence. It was in the Tuscan capital, in fact, that Rosa Balistreri began her artistic career, thanks in part to her meeting with the Florentine painter Manfredi Lombardi. From the second half of the 1960s onwards, Rosa Balistreri took on a leading role in Italian folk music: yet, through her songs, she never relinquished a certain polemical and political edge in the face of the injustices she had already suffered in her homeland, but which she continued to see widespread throughout the peninsula.
Castelfiorentino, which had already dedicated a postcard to her in 1997 during the “In/Canti e Banchi” festival, plans to organise a number of initiatives dedicated to Rosa Balistreri throughout 2026: meetings with secondary school pupils, a conference on her artistic output, and finally an illustrated book to introduce her life and works to younger generations.
“With the performance on Saturday 21st – the Mayor emphasises, Francesca Giannì – which, incidentally, coincides with Rosa Balistreri’s birthday – marks the launch of a project to raise awareness among the public (and beyond) of the legacy and cultural commitment of this extraordinary woman, who, having endured a childhood marked by poverty and violence, was able to use her artistic talent to defend the rights of the most vulnerable, the marginalised and women. A project that will conclude next year, in the spring of 2027, which will coincide precisely with the centenary of her birth”.
