I Beddi are a prize winning folk music group from Sicily which was founded in 2005 by Sicilian musicians Davide “Tamburo di Aci” Urso and Simona Di Gregorio.

I Beddi’s songs are in a mixture of Sicilian dialect and Italian. The group’s most recent album “E falla bedda la ninnaredda – canti e cunti del Natale siciliano” – “Sweet Dreams – Sicilian Christmas songs and tales” came out in 2012.

Today I Beddi are guitarist Mimì Sterrantino, flautist and accordion player Giampaolo Nunzio, double bassist, Pier Paolo Alberghini and tambourine man, Davide “Tamburo di Aci” Urso – one of the group’s founders. Simona Di Gregorio left in 2008, but luckily, I Beddi played on.

In 2007 the group did an Italy and world tour visiting a number of Italian regions and countries as diverse as Austria, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Tunisia, and Malta. I Beddi also took their jaunty brand of Sicilian music as far a field as Malaysia.

Also in 2007, I Beddi recorded the sound track for a documentary on Sicily’s many baroque treasures.

In 2010, the track Tarantella Blues won I Beddi first prize in Sicily’s New Sicilian Song Festival. The group returned to Malaysia in 2010 where they presented their SICILIAZERO album at the Rainforest World Music Festival.

Here’s I Beddi’s prize winning track

Tarantella Blues

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAGoI19wezQ[/youtube]

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

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Next, complete with pretty Sicilian dancing girls, here’s the I Beddi music video…

…A la fera di li paroli

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfAJK7nzLk0[/youtube]

You can here more of I Beddi’s music on their website: I Beddi Videos

You can also find I Beddi on Facebook.

Fun, aren’t they? :)

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With thanks to Mariella Caruso and Sanne de Boer for their help in translating “E falla bedda la ninnaredda – canti e cunti del Natale siciliano” via Twitter. My Sicilian dialect is not too hot, I have to admit!

PS I think “beddi” might be “donkeys” in English.