Italian Traditional Music in Adelaide in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

A version of this chapter was originally presented at the Second National Folklore Conference in Sydney in October 1986, responding to the conference theme “multicultural influences upon the Australian folk heritage”. This version of the paper presented here has been substantially updated with references to published research that has appeared since its original presentation. The paper addresses three questions: • In what sense it is useful to talk about “the Australian folk heritage” in the singular? • In what avenues might any “multicultural” influences operate? • How would it be possible to identify such influences after the event? Italy has a number of historical and geographical features that make its traditional popular culture extremely diverse. Political unification did not occur until 1861, and the national language remained largely literary and bureaucratic in use until the twentieth century. Because of this relatively recent political and linguistic unification of the country, regional cultures characterised by diverse dialects and rich oral traditions thrived until quite recently, when the impact of mass media began increasingly to overwhelm the underlying cultural diversity. Some aspects of these traditions have survived more strongly in Australia than in Italy because of lack of competition from the national language, while others have died out due to changes in social structures in Australia.