It was in a medieval castle, with ramparts and a bridge over the surrounding ditch, in Folimpopoli, a small town in the heart of Italy, where Fiorino Fiorini first heard the sound of a didgeridoo.
He was at the ‘Rocca’ – the castle – that houses a music school, specialising in traditional instruments, to enrol for guitar classes.
“It was 1998. I wanted to attend the opening night of the music school, and as soon as I entered the castle, I heard this deep sound that made the ancient walls thunder,” he says.
“I followed the sound and arrived in the castle's basement where, in ancient times, they used to preserve food and wine, there was this a guy who was playing this amazing instrument. The sound came up from there and resonated all around the building. I immediately fell in love with the sound.”
Instead of guitar, he took up the didgeridoo. After learning the instrument for a few years in Italy, he decided to visit Australia, to experience the didgeridoo on its own land. In 2002, Mr Fiorini visited the artists in Australia he had been listening to while learning the instrument in Italy. He says that experience shaped the rest of his life.
“I thought it would be difficult to reach the artists, but it wasn’t, they are very humble people. The relationship that I managed to form immediately with them was a sign.”
“Spending time with these amazing artists, and their generosity was a unique experience; I understood I had to change direction in my life.”
Do you know those moments in life when something happens, and you start connecting the dots and all of a sudden you realise there was a reason behind all that happened to you in the past?
During his travels in Australia, in 2008 Mr Fiorini volunteered at the The Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures, Australia’s largest Indigenous cultural gatherings Source: Courtesy of Fiorni Fiorini
“When I met with Djalu Gurruwiwi, a Yolngu man from Arnhem Land and a custodian of the didgeridoo tradition, he taught me didgeridoo and said, ‘You go and play.’”
A bridge between cultures
When Mr Fiorini returned to Italy, he started attending major didgeridoo festivals in Europe. He met one of the most prominent Australian players, Alan Dargin, in Spain, and invited him to spend some time in Italy.
“During the time Dargin was in Italy he had this idea of organising a concert. It was 2003; it was the birth of ‘’ – the first international festival of the didgeridoo in Italy. It started as a one-off event but grew to be an annual occasion to perform contemporary didgeridoo music in Italy,” he tells SBS Italian.
When my PR application as a music teacher specialised in didgeridoo was granted, I understood the what I did over the past twenty years had a purpose.
Mr Fiorini returned to Australia on a student visa in 2015. He currently teaches at a Perth music school that also sponsored his permanent residency as a music teacher specialising in didgeridoo.
Despite moving to Australia, he has continued to organise the annual didgeridoo festival in Italy.
“In Italy, people are intrigued by this sound that comes from afar, from a little-known culture,” says Mr Fiorini who has been organising the festival for the past 17 years.
He says the event builds a bridge between his original culture and the culture he has decided to embrace.
“I believe the very tight bond the First nation people have to their land is what originally attracted me. Having said that, I left my own land, my own roots, so I guess it might sound awkward.”
Mr Fiorini says there are important lessons he derives from his interactions with Indigenous artists and elders.
“Whatever they do, they do it respecting the ecosystem, their way of conserving their land, in short, the bond they have with mother earth still amazes me many years later.”
