Romanistan
The authors of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling present: Romanistan! Do you love rebels? Do you want to live in a place where outcasts shine their brightest? Welcome to Romanistan! We're your friendly neighborhood Gypsies, celebrating Romani identity and outcast culture, and practicing good diplomatic relations with other marginalized communities.
We love the rebels who are living their truth, even if it clashes with tradition. We also love tradition and honoring our roots. This podcast is for everyone who loves and supports Roma & related groups, and anyone who feels like a misfit and wants to uplift others to create a beautiful community.
We feature pioneers in culture, fashion, art, literature, music, activism, cuisine, and everything good. We adore the intersections of gender, sexuality, spirituality, ability, and identity. We cover all topics, from the difficult to the glorious. Let's sit crooked and talk straight.
Hosted by Paulina Stevens and Jezmina Von Thiele. We reclaim the slur Gypsy, but if you aren’t Romani, we prefer you don't use it. xoxo.
P.S. The Romani people are a diasporic ethnic group originally from northwest India, circa the 10th century. Now, Roma live all over the globe, and due to centuries of oppression, slavery, genocide, and other atrocities, Roma are still fighting for basic human rights. We seek to raise awareness of who Roma are, and highlight Romani resilience, creativity, & culture.
Romanistan
Alexian Santino Spinelli, musician, composer, writer, and professor
Alexian Santino Spinelli, musician, composer, writer, poet and university professor. The first Italian Roma to be appointed Commendatore of the Italian Republic for artistic and cultural merits. Spinelli with the Alexian Group holds numerous concerts in Italy and abroad. With his son Gennaro, he is the first Roma to have played at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples with the soloists of the Scala, the San Carlo and the G. Rossini Symphony Orchestra of Pesaro. He has played worldwide for Pope Benedict XVI and several times for Pope Francis. Founder and president of the cultural association Thèm Romanò, he is an ambassador of Romani culture in the world. His poem Auschwitz is on the Roma Memorial in Berlin inaugurated with Chancellor Angela Merkel. He currently teaches Romani Language and Culture at La Sapienza University in Rome.
Listen to the Alexian Group here and wherever you get music.
Romani crushes this episode are Raјko Đurić, Marcel Courthaid, Ian Hancock Esme Redzepova, Roby Lakatos, and Marian Serban.
Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast.
You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @romanistanpodcast, and on Twitter @romanistanpod. To support us, Join our Patreon for extra content or donate to Ko-fi.com/romanistan, and please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us so much.
Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic.
You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcast.com for events, educational resources, merch, and more. Please support our book tour fundraiser if you can.
Email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries.
Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens
Conceived of by Paulina Stevens
Edited by Viktor Pachas
With Music by Viktor Pachas
And Artwork by Elijah Vardo
Welcome to Romanistan.
Speaker 2:We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies. I'm Paulina and I'm Jez, and today we're here with Alexian Santino Spinelli. Musician, composer, writer, poet and university professor, the first Italian Roma to be appointed the Comandatore of the Italian Republic for artistic and cultural merits. Spinelli, with the Alexian Group, holds numerous concerts in Italy and abroad. With his son, gennaro, he is the first Roma to have played at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, with the soloists of the Scala and the San Carlo and the Girosini Symphony Orchestra of Pesaro. He has played worldwide for Pope Benedict XVI and several times for Pope Francis. Founder and president of the cultural association Teem Romano, he is the ambassador of Romani culture in the world. His poem Auschwitz is on the Roma Memorial in Berlin, inaugurated with Chancellor Angela Merkel. He currently teaches Romani language and culture at La Sapienza University in Rome.
Speaker 3:Yay, welcome. We're so happy to have you here. Thank you very much for your invitation. It's a great pleasure and great honor to stay with you today to speak about our world, the Romani world. You know that we love so much.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, and you're the perfect person to talk to about this Can you tell us a little more about yourself, where you're from, where your family's from and your visa?
Speaker 3:Okay, to the oldest Roma community that arrived in Italy in the 15th century. My family settled in the south of Italy and here we remain. My family arrived in the Abruzzo region. Abruzzo is in the center part of Italy, on the Adriatic coast, and I live in Lanciano, in the Chieti province, near the Adriatic coast. Lanciano is a small town but it gave me the opportunity to live tranquility after the tourney all my work, so when I come back to home I can have time for me, for my family and to relax here very well.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful yeah.
Speaker 1:So we love to ask this question Do you consider yourself a rebel?
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the sense that I am against any form of racism, any form of discrimination, any form of injustice, you know. So in this sense, I am a good rebel.
Speaker 2:That's an important thing to rebel against.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's becoming so normalized, so we got to say it sometimes.
Speaker 2:We would love to know more about your relationship with music. When did you start playing and what do you really love to perform?
Speaker 3:music. When did you start playing and what do you really love to perform? Yes, I started playing music when I was young, thanks to my father and that passion for music, you know. So I had this opportunity and I must thank him for that great opportunity. When other Roma not have the same opportunity, he gave me the opportunity also to go to school. You know, that was my luck at the time. So I had the opportunity to take the instrument to become what today I am. I love music and I pass on my family, my children, the same passion. So I have the great pleasure to play with my children my son, gennaro, that is a great, great violinist, and my daughters, two daughters, evideza, that play harps and Julia that plays cello. So my family is a musical family.
Speaker 2:That is so sweet. How would you describe the style of music that you usually play? Is it traditional music or do you play a lot of different kinds?
Speaker 3:Yes, traditional music, sure for sure. But also my composition that is also in Italian, romanese, our language, our dialect, you know, is different from the other dialect, so that influence also my way in which I play and produce music. So that is sure. But I remain inside the international Romani music. You know, if you want, my music is influenced by the Mediterranean and Balcanic style. But I love music, of course jazz, I love classical music, I love in general ethnic music, but above all I love Romani music in all forms, in all expressions.
Speaker 1:Very nice, and it's also super cool to have a whole musical family.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know I told before that my father passed on to me his passion for music and I pass on to my children the passion for music, so we have the opportunity to play together. For example, we play for the Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 in Bresso, near Milan, worldwide, you know, on national television and worldwide, in front of 1 million people. That means 4 kilometers of people and with a great screen to see all our performance. It was a great, great, great satisfaction, but also a great experience. It was amazing emotion, you know, and I can see you. I can say you that I'm not ashamed to say that when I came back to the dressing room, I cried. I cried for the satisfaction, for the commotion. You know it was a real, very particular moment of my life. Why? Because I shared this experience with my children. You know they support of the pressure of the media, of the great event that they lived with me in that moment, with great musicians like Noah you know, the Israeli singer, very great artist, very well known in all the world.
Speaker 3:That's incredible I mean I send you the video of this experience so you can see four kilometers of people, one million people there.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine what did you play for the Pope?
Speaker 3:I played my composition Pater Noster you know, the Holy Father in the Roman language, in my dialect. So I composed that many, many years ago and I had the opportunity to offer this composition, this song, to many holy fathers that means Benedict XVI, but many, many times to the Pope Francis I, and it was a great emotion any time, you know, particularly the Pope Francis I was very, very, very. He liked this song. He liked it so much and the first time that he listened to this composition he was surprised, you know, to listen in a different language. The father, the paternoster, our father, you know, in the Romani language. It's very, very surprising for him. It was a great surprise for him, sure.
Speaker 2:That is so powerful to be able to play that song in our language, and so you got to speak to him. You got to talk to him and meet him and everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I speak with him in italian, of course. Yeah, in romanese, right, but because you know our language, I have the honor to to teach our language and culture at the university, in la sapienza, in r, and our language, you know, can survive only if the other people can learn, only if our language can be promoted in all directions and at the old level. But many times, you know, our language is discriminated, you know from the institution. For example, in Italy, you know there is a law that protects 12 minorities, 12 minorities, language and culture of 12 minorities, but not the Roma minority. That is a great, great injustice and many times I underlined that it's very, very important to promote, to include our language and culture in that law or create a specific law for our language, for our culture, because we have the right to live with our culture. That is a wonderful culture. That is a wonderful culture, wonderful language that comes from, as you know, from, the origin, is Indian origin.
Speaker 3:So it's absurd today that our language is not supported by the Italian institution, institution. So I hope very, very soon can change this situation. Before you ask me if I am a rebel, yes, I am a rebel because I want to promote, to support our language and our history, our culture. Why? Because it is a human being patrimony, you know it belongs, our language belongs to the humanity and it's very important to promote it at all levels. We need that. You know, and many times, many times you know, our world, romani world, is seen only through the stereotypes. That is not good for us. It's not good because serotypes do not include our character, our world. In the majority, society.
Speaker 1:We actually we think it's really amazing that you teach Romanes. Yes, I teach Romanes.
Speaker 3:I teach roman language, romanes um.
Speaker 1:We were wondering what do you feel about our language being more accessible, like through google translate, different classes, um and other methods, like? What's your opinion on that?
Speaker 3:Yes, I am. I believe I told before. I believe that only if we support and promote our language our language can survive. Otherwise it risks disappearing. Yeah, that is the risk disappearing.
Speaker 2:Do you teach specifically?
Speaker 3:This is not good for human being, you know, because, as I told before, our culture is part of the human treasure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. I was wondering do you teach the dialect that's spoken most in Italy, or do you teach other dialects?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I teach international Roman language, but also with the example, with our dialect. You know our Italian dialect because it's not so different, but they are different because the word is the same. For example, I don't know maro. Maro is bread. You know maro, but we say maro. The other people say maro or manro or manro, but the word is the same. Yeah, the lexical is the same but it's different. The grammar is just a little different. It's a main dialect. You know, the Romano language is unique, but it's divided in many, many dialects, different dialects, and many times these dialects do not understand each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting because there's such a big debate about the Romani language being accessible through Google Translate and some people are saying that maybe they're afraid that certain dialects will get left behind and people will only know the popular ones. But do you have opinions about how people should preserve dialects?
Speaker 3:No, the Google translation is not so good for a Romani language because there are a lot of wrong, you know. Oh, there is a problem to understand what Google want from Roma people, but it's okay. As I told before, it's very, very important to promote. It's not important, but we need to promote our language at all levels. Okay, through the social network, google course to university, in private course on private convention or seminar. You know, it's very important to promote the truth. That means history, culture, language I don't know literature, filmography, etc. Etc. What is very important to promote is the truth about Roma and to overtake the stereotypes, because there are too many stereotypes that come from the discrimination, stereotype that comes from discrimination. So we must eliminate, cancel the discrimination and the stereotype and to promote the truth about the Roma community.
Speaker 3:There are a lot of things very, very positive in our life and culture, like music, for example. No, you know, it's a great contribution of Roma people to the classical music in Europe during the Romantic era. You know, the great composer, european composer, like Fran Liste, like Joan Brahms, like Franz Schubert and many, many others, take from Roma their musical patrimony, music patrimony, you know, and put it in the classic music Great, great valorization, but not recognition to the Roma this great merit. You know the great, great contribution. And until now Roma music is cataloged as folkloristic music. No, roma music is cataloged as folkloristic music. No, roman music is art, it's a great art, like flamenco in Spain Without Roma, the contribution of Roma in Spain, never the flamenco can be be became what it is now, you know, like volcanic Roma music or East European Roma music or the great jazz manouche music.
Speaker 3:You know that comes from Django Reinhardt, the great genius. Many, many um rom artists during the history of humanity were a great, great genius, you know, and one of that is a jungle reiner. So the romani music is very, very important, in a different style, in different expression, and music itself is poetry, like the colors of the painting are music at the same time. That means that there is a close connection between all kinds of arts. Why? Because they come from the human South. That's the expression of the human heart and sound. Thank you.
Speaker 1:We actually wanted to ask what do you think is special about Romani art, specifically their art, music and our writing?
Speaker 3:our writing. Music is one of the most important expressions of the Roma community. You know that gives us the opportunity to keep and preserve our culture. Without music, maybe roman romanian population not would have the opportunity to preserve and keep art, language and our world. So I think that music was one of the most important instruments to keep and to conserve our identity. What we say we call Romani pen. Okay, without music we have not Romani pen. It's a part, a very important part, of Romani music. Romani music is the life, heart of our identity.
Speaker 2:Do you have any suggestions for listeners who maybe aren't that familiar with Romani music? Who should they listen to to get started?
Speaker 3:No, all kinds of music is good, all kinds of music, form of music, romani music is good, very, very good. There are many, many styles. There are many, many, many different expressions of Romani music is good, very, very good. There are many, many styles. You know many, many, many different expressions of Romani music, but all of them is very good. Now there is a very important passage. If you want, it's a very.
Speaker 3:I think that it's revolutionary. It's the new step that we follow, you know, from folklorism to symphonism, From Romani folklore to the symphonism. We reach that and we must go on toward the ethno-symphonism. What means that? Mean and I am included in this direction, in this I would say travel. What does ethno-symphonies mean? It's not only the music of a specific community, roma community, but in European Roma music that we are not. We have a different style flamenco, volcanic, east Europe, jazz, manhout, but not a real European Roman music. And I am involved in this process to promote a real European Roman music.
Speaker 3:My production, my last production, is that From in the past, the folklore give us the opportunity to keep and to conserve our identity, but now we can, must, develop all that in a other form of music. We must include in our music also also element from different European composers, what the European composers during the Romantic era made. That means take our music and put it in the classical music we must make. On the contrary, take from different European composers some element European European elements and to put it in our music. That is my work now, you know, and I produce with the Grutter symphonic orchestra, rocini, gioacchino Rocini symphony orchestra. I produce a new CD that you can unload from the best music platform like Team Music, spotify, etc. Etc. Okay, you can take that. And Alexian Group and Rossini Orchestra with this Romano-Etrano-Symphonic Anodrom. That means the journey through the Romani music, etrano-symphonic Romani music.
Speaker 2:That is so exciting, this idea of very meaningfully borrowing the way that we've been borrowed from and kind of writing us back into the canon. Is it different, is it a different process writing music than it is writing poetry, or do you feel like those two parts of your brain are connected?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, it's connected. It's closed, you know, because, as I told before, I come from the same southern heart, so it's different expression of the same, uh, sensitivity so interesting.
Speaker 2:Um, you have had such a fascinating life. In general, I feel like we could ask you about anything and you would have a great story to tell and teach us something, and you're a good storyteller. Is there any story you just love to tell about your experiences in life and music and art with your family, or all of those things?
Speaker 3:Yeah, my experience, one of the best experience in my life was when I play with my son in uh teatro. La scala in milan, you know, is the is the temple of the mundial music and play for the first time. Like I and my son, we are the first Roma that, as a soloist, arrived at this level. Never before in the 6th century did Roma reach the Scala in Milan. That is a great honor but also a great responsibility for us. In the Scala you can triumph or death from a musical point of view. You know if the critic massacrate you, but the good God save us. And the critic was very, very, very positive because we bring our natural music, you know, our harmony, our very expressive art in the temple of the mundial music and with Triumph, triumph did that and gave us this great satisfaction.
Speaker 3:And I am also the first composer, you know, because in the poster is my composition Romano di Vese, that means the great part of Roma. Romano di Vese, romanese. You know, this is the first composition that enters this great place. And in the poster there is the name of Brahms, because we play the music of Brahms, liszt, bizet and traditional Romani music and also my composition Romano di Vesca by Santino Spinelli. That is a great result, not only for me you know, it's not an individual enrichment but all my people, all Roma from all the world. You know this is what we do for our son, gennaro that bring the Romani flag on the Mount of Everest.
Speaker 2:We have to hear more about that. We were going to ask about everything.
Speaker 3:It's not individual event. It's not individual event but it's collective. It's all our population at the same time and all Roma from all over the world was meeting and at the same time, pride of that event. You know it's the same for us when we played in uh theater alaskana de milano, because roma from all the world send us message to congratulate with us. You know, at the same time, in this, the, the very important, very, very, very important theater of San Carlo in Naples. You know, san Carlo, it was the first theater in Europe. All the theater that came after take it as model. San Carlo theater was the model for the future. Before there is only the hall for concert, not theater, all for concert. After that was born San Carlo theater, all Europe built theater with the same model. They take this practice.
Speaker 3:Okay, so for us, for me, for my son, for my family, it was a great honor but also a great responsibility. Not only for my family, it was a great honor but also a great responsibility not only for my, of course, a great satisfaction not only from an individual point of view but as a representative of our community in all the world and in fact, from all the world can make such world and in fact from all the world come mixage to compliment. You know, to say thank you, santino, for that work. I am with you for the work. My son from the Montavers is not easy to go there, you know. No, it's very, very difficult to go with a Romani flag to go there. It was also dangerous, very dangerous Were you nervous.
Speaker 3:From a physical point of view.
Speaker 1:Yeah, were you nervous about him climbing up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, very, very scared. I was worried all the time. Three weeks I couldn't sleep in the night. You know I was very, very, very scared because I know the dangerous that, what mean to stay at six, seven meters, you know, without oxygen, and it's very, very dangerous. Also, because you know the mini is very, it's very high. You know the mini is very high. You know the path is very narrow, the street is very, very narrow. It's 150 kilometers to go up. It's not easy. It's not easy, absolutely. It was needed three weeks to arrive there and I and my wife, of course, we were scared, we were in anxiety. You know, all the time I was really afraid for that all the time I was really afraid for that.
Speaker 2:I would be too. And then when we saw the news article because, of course, like paulina, and I didn't know that was happening you were afraid for three weeks. We just saw the article and I couldn't believe it. I had to actually read it a few times.
Speaker 3:I was like, wow, that's so incredible yeah, because I I do only what I feel. This is my freedom. I can't do something in which I don't believe. What I do is what in which I believe. So my passion is my star that I follow.
Speaker 2:I love that. Do you have any advice for young roma with a dream who are trying to figure out? You know how do they follow a path like yours. Like what's your best advice?
Speaker 3:Because many sacrifice the talent is not enough to reach results. You know, it's a very, very important sacrifice and I would say, in English, work. It's very important to work every day so hard. Without very hard work, sacrifice, it's impossible to reach something. It's not enough the talent. Talent is good to help you to arrive at a certain level before the other, but it's not enough to go on. So I suggest to the young people to love what they do and believe in something and to have dreams, because if you work so hard, you can take your dream and translate them into reality, and translate them in reality. Okay, a dream is possible. To transform dreams in reality, but only with sacrifice, with hard work, that is sure, but after it's also more satisfaction. If you reach something without sacrifice, you know it's not only, it's not satisfaction, satisfaction comes from the hard work.
Speaker 1:We definitely agree. What do you have coming up on the horizon that you would like our listeners to know about? Are there any projects you're currently working on?
Speaker 3:Yeah, as I told you before, I am involved now to promote not only traditional music but also ethno-symphonic music. It is a new step, a new process, because we must go on without stereotypes. Many times, you know, folklorism reinforces the stereotype. The ethnosymphonies give us respect. That is the difference. So I am involved to promote art, culture, language, history of our people. But also I want to give my personal contribution for a new process in the Romani art.
Speaker 2:That's such an amazing undertaking and we just love that about you. You're a big dreamer and then you do with that. We always ask this question. I think I might have forgotten to give you a heads up, but we ask a question who is your favorite or who is your Romani crush? Which just means like, who's a Romani person who you really admire, who you would like to shout their name out so people can go listen to them or learn more about them.
Speaker 3:I had the opportunity and the lucky to know Raiko Djuric. That is that. But it was really a great great Roma intellectual, a Roma artist, you know, a great poet and a great, great great person. I was very, very young when I learned from him so much during a summer school, a Romani summer school in Rome. I was very young in that time and he taught me so much. Also, marcel Courtiart taught me so much, indirectly, also Jan Hancock, you know.
Speaker 3:So there is a lot of Romani people that we must say thank you to, these great Romani people that honored our culture and our language, our world.
Speaker 3:You know, and from a musical point of view, I admit I have the honor to share the stage with the great singer, esma Recepova. I share the. That is in Podgorica, you know, in the Montenegro, the state of Montenegro, in the National Theater in Podgorica, we hold a concert together, sharing the stage At the same time in France, for example, with the great, great, great, great great musician, martin Weiss, that play violin at the great, great, great, great, great musician Martin Weiss that play violin at the contrary, but was a genius, really a great genius, genius. And another genius that I meet and I hear the stage is still alive is Robby Lakatos in Jurmala in Latvia some years ago. But I had the lucky to meet a lot of great musicians and I played, for example, for seven years with Mari Scherban, one of the greatest symbolists you know symbol, the symbol is a but he lived in Italy for many, many years and for seven years we collaborated with my group and we make a lot of extraordinary, amazing concerts together in all Europe.
Speaker 2:Oh, that is so fascinating. I love that you got to meet so many of your heroes. That's wonderful. I feel like that's what we get to do every month.
Speaker 3:You know, you are very young, but I am an old man. Yes, I am an old man, yes, I am an old man, so I have a lot of experience. But, you know, when you become old you see the life from another perspective, another view, visual, you know. But when you are young you have not the good experience, experience but you have a lot of force. You know energy. Now, when you became old, okay, you have not energy, but a lot of experience it evens out, yes, but I can play for that.
Speaker 3:But because I'm very, very lucky to have a wonderful, really wonderful family, that is a real my treasure, is a real success in the life, you know, is my family, my two daughter, my wife and my son. My sister and I had two wonderful, wonderful parents my mommy, my mom, julia, that is that, and my father is that, and my father, genaro, and that is that, and my son, julia, bring the name of his grandmother and the genaro bring the name of his. His grand is grandfather. So my parents still live in in my, in the name of my, my son. That's our tradition in the Italian Roma community. This is a tradition for us.
Speaker 2:That is so beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's part of our tradition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I met you in Romania years ago at Luminita's festival, which was incredible and life-changing- one of the things. I just took away most about you is how warmly you speak about your family. I love hearing about all the things you do with them.
Speaker 3:My family is my treasure. You know, in all Roma family, without family we cannot survive, you know. In any time family, the focal point of Romani culture. Our woman is the real, the great, I would say, treasure of Romani family. Our woman is very, very important. I am lucky to have five sisters. Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And I am the only man of the family and the last one, you know, the youngest, the baby. So I had also two brothers and two sisters that unfortunately they died. My mom had ten children. We remained six, five sisters and I. They live in my function, you know. They protect me. One of my, the secret of my success in my life was my family, was my five sisters and my mother, six Romani women. You understand what I mean is an army, a great army that protect me from the external dangers. That is the truth. It's only the truth. I always say that. I underline that my family was my real support, my real successful in my triumph in life. I was very, very lucky. You know many, many other children, romani children not having the same luck, and also for that that I am a rebel against discrimination, against injustice. You know, against racism I can stand racism, I can support that I need. My soul can accept any kind of discrimination. So my soul, my heart, rebels against that.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have such an important message to share of love and also, you know, fighting against injustice. Where can people find you? Do you have a website you want people to find you? Do you have a favorite place where people can listen to your music?
Speaker 3:Many, many In the concert. What happened? What happened?
Speaker 3:Any time that I enter on the stage, you know, and from behind the stage when I see the public, the theater is full. Always I say to my colleague, my young colleague, you know the miracle is done. Also this night I told them why. Because it's a miracle when you arrive on stage and you can find a public for you that pay to listen to you. That is a great miracle.
Speaker 3:It's not for any artist that, a good artist also. So for any time I take my colleague, my young colleague, and say then you see it tonight also, the miracle. We have a miracle, we have a public. And so please give us, give them all what we have inside us in performing in the best way, because the public deserves all the best way, because the public deserves all the best. It is my ticket, this is what I do anytime. I think the public give me energy and I give them my energy and all my group of the orchestra. It depends if we play traditional or ethnic music or the symphonic music. You know it's a different style, it's a different energy, but the force of Romani music is the same.
Speaker 2:Ah, beautiful. Well, we will put the links for everything in the show notes so people can find you. Thank you so much for coming and speaking with us. This was so fun, yeah we really really appreciate.
Speaker 3:No, thank you for this opportunity to speak, uh, about my passion. That is, became my professional. Music is something that I love so much and you know the university in Vienna on 22 May invited me as a special guest to speak about Romani music at the university. So I go there with all my satisfaction and to bring my contribution to promote our music, our world, because music is a Romani word, romani word is in our music, and I hope that also in the future the people can love our music and our art. You can unload my music, my personal music, from the international platforms. You know music platform, the best one in all the world, and my publisher, music publisher, music publisher distributes my music in all the world, so it's very easy to meet my music, the video of my group interview, etc. So I hope also one day to have the opportunity to stay with you again, like in Romania, in Sibiu, with our very, very nice sister, luminitsa Mihaly Chlaba. That is a great, great poet, you know.
Speaker 2:One of my favorites.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because you know, I teach also literature in my during my course and my students love her so much With Alia Krasnici, Bayrama Aliti, many, many, many Roma, but Luminica is one of the best Together, of course, Papusha. Papusha was our legend in literature and in poetry mainly. This is all, and I hope to meet you again as soon as possible. You know, the last week I had a lesson, a class, you know, on Romani music with the Vermont University on video online with many, many students on video online with many, many students with a Jonah I do not see if you know Jonah, Jonah Steinberg. The University is in South Carolina oh, okay cool.
Speaker 3:Yes, last last week, with the slide, a real lesson, yeah, a real lesson, yeah, a real lesson about Romani music, and it was a great, great success and I hope to repeat that experience. Yes, oh my God, we remain in contact. Please don't I'll say in English please to meet you again. To remain in contact. Okay, this is very important Not divide each other, but we must remain in contact and to change experience, information about our world and also your production, okay, your art production. It's very, very important. And you must also take part to the art competition, international art competition, amico, rome in Italy.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh my goodness. Yeah, Paulina and I want to travel so much and we'll do that.
Speaker 3:I've never been in Italy, sorry.
Speaker 2:We would love to come see you.
Speaker 3:I went to Italy.
Speaker 2:Have you never been in Italy?
Speaker 1:One time yeah.
Speaker 2:When I was much younger, I was in Italy for a little while and I loved it. Where? What city? I went to? Venice, Rome, florence I went to Florence, and Ravello, oh very well, yeah, you see, all Italy, a lot Beautiful, beautiful. I love it, now only.
Speaker 3:Abruzzo, where I live, abruzzo and Adriatic Coast. The coast of Trabucchi is a wonderful, wonderful place, so when you want to spend some holiday, you can come in Italy. Ok, we have a very good sun here, very good and very good music, romani music.
Speaker 1:Yes, the best in the world.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Paulina had to step away because her daughter needed something.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much because you give me the opportunity to have it is to enjoy this. Uh, this time it was a very good time.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much and thank you to your colleague, young colleague yes, oh, my goodness, so good to see you again, and we'll be in touch for sure. Take care, ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Romanistan Podcast.
Speaker 2:You can find us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at Romanistan Podcast and on Twitter at RomanistanPod, To support us, join our Patreon for extra content or just donate to our Ko-Fi fundraiser, ko-ficom backslash romanistan, and please rate, review and subscribe. It helps people find our show.
Speaker 1:it helps us so much you can follow jez on instagram at jasminavantila and paulina at romani holistic. You can get our book secrets of romani fortune telling online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcastcom for events, educational resources and more.
Speaker 2:Email us at romanistanpodcast at gmailcom for inquiries romanistan is hosted by jasmina Vontila and Paulina Stevens, conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor Pachas, with music by Victor Pachas and artwork by Elijah Vardo.