Italy
See: Music of Italy
Italian-Americans are concentrated on the Eastern Seaboard, especially in New York City. Their music includes square dances, tarantellas, mazurkas, waltzes and polkas, and music for mandolin, banjo, guitar and accordion.
Italian folk traditions have had a lasting influence of barbershop singing and doo wop. Neapolitan bandleader Francis Scala was bandleader of the U.S. Marine Band after immigrating in 1840; as is common in Naples, he placed the clarinet (which he played himself) in a prominent place in his performances.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Immigrant Communities In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word italy:
“I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“Lump the whole thing! Say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery—back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)