Murmur Mori

What would probably shock the troubadours of the 12th century, if they were alive today, would not be to see their lyrics performed, but to witness a performance without Love. This belief generates the original expressiveness that characterizes the concerts of the Murmur Mori ensemble.

Trusting only and exclusively in the original sources, Mirko Volpe and Silvia Kuro carry out their research by personally viewing the manuscripts containing the lyrics whose melodies were often entrusted to the oral tradition and, just as often happens with popular music, they have been lost in time.

Inspired by the popular muse and by the realities in which it still survives, the Murmur Mori ensemble investigates the jongleurs poetry working on the reconstruction of the sound of the early Italian vernacular lyrics and of the secular music of the "Middle Ages". The main intent is to rediscover the musicality of vernacular poetry since most of these poems were sung even before being written, as the metric and form suggest, when no one has ever attempted to set them to music again, leaving them confined in literary studies The result is: "new early music", composed both of the musical forms of the medieval centuries and of folk music approaches. The musical instruments used are reproductions based on depictions from the

12th-13th-14th centuries.

In 2022 the french version of the musical program “Poetesses, Poets and Jongleurs of Italy” was presented at the prestigious “Festes Baroques” festival. “Festes Baroques”. In the same year “Dançando la fressca Rosa” was published: a mini-album resulting from the research of Mirko and Silvia on the Memoriali Bolognesi of the 13th century, carried out with the Alma Mater Studiorum of Bologna, MemoBo project; in 2022 they release the single “Aiuta De’, vera lus et garçat”, a musical reconstruction of a troubadour Alba translated into a Piedmontese vernacular in the 13th century.

In 2023 they release the album “Canzoneta, va!” concerning the connection between Provençal and Italian poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries, in the same year they were contacted by the Italian Cultural Institute of Bratislava for two concerts included in the cultural events for the "Week of the Italian Language in the World". Murmur Mori won the historical "Premio Italia Medievale 2023" (Medieval Italy Award), ranking first in the "entertainment" category.

Murmur Mori ensemble has never used electricity or amplification during their concerts, a choice that is not only aesthetic but determined by the desire to offer a more authentic listening experience, since ignoring or modifying the sound of the place would be a failure towards the music that Murmur Mori wants to reconstruct. Music resonates within the historical environments that for centuries have returned it to our ears enriched with their personality. Furthermore, for this very reason, all the audio recordings of the Murmur Mori ensemble have been filmed and are available on murmurmori.com.