Celtic Music in Italy
SG: I know you are the editor of "Keltika" - a monthly glossy magazine in which you interview many of the top bands and review the latest cd releases. I was most impressed by the production standards that go into the magazine and its accompanying cd. Tell me how you got started....
ADP: Well, first of all I'm NOT the Editor of Keltika, I'm just one of the contributors. Keltika is a monthly magazine sold in all Italian newsstands since 1996 and very popular among the many Italian lovers of Celtic music and culture. Every issue (actually monthly more or less 3,000 - 4,000 copies are sold) comes with a compilation CD from the best international "Celtic" artists. To give you a comparison, it is something like Folk Roots in England, but the Folk Roots cd is only twice a year, whereas with Keltika every issue comes with a CD. In this way everyone who buys the magazine can read about (and listen to) the various artists featured on each issue - something very similar to the software shareware magazines with CD-rom attached. But Keltika doesn't cover only music. Half of the magazine is involved with the history, the social development, the culture, the art of all the regions and nations with a Celtic heritage. And not many know, outside of Italy, that also a big part of Italy - the northern regions - is partially Celtic in origin. How I started to work for Keltika...it was very funny: more or less three years ago my son convinced to try to put on line a web site, just to see how it worked...so I began to write something about my job (I'm a General Practitioner) and my musical passions. It was a great surprise and a great honour for me when I received an email from the Editor of Keltika, asking me if I'd like to work for them. From that moment on I wrote dozens of reviews concerning Irish, Breton, Scottish, English, American and Italian musicians. I receive regularly for review all the new releases from some of the most important record companies, such as Compass Records and Green Linnet (USA), Coop-Breizh (Britain), Fflach-Tradd (Wales), Park Records, Beautiful Jo and Offspring Records (UK)...and many more, of course!
SG: Do you get to interview the performers in person, or is most of it done by e-mail?
ADP: Only few times I had interviews in person
Latest Articles