Biography
The ensemble has participated in numerous events including historical re enactments and processions, jousts, Medieval and Renaissance fairs, national and international festivals and various other events.
In 2003, the Company of La Giostra was the protagonist of the short film titled Le parole sono ali (The words are wings), through which the group participated in the Taormina Cinema Festival. In the same year, together with the actress Mariella Lo Giudice, the company realised the show Una vita per Federico (A life for Federico), performing in the National Theatre of La Valletta and in the Italian Embassy in Malta. Subsequently the company was chosen by the film director Enrico Centofanti as the representative group of the land of Trinacria in order to perform the musical-theatrical show Dante e la Sicilia (Dante and Sicily) performed in Ravenna on the occasion of "September's Dante" in 2003.
In June 2005, La Giostra went on tour in Turkey, around Ankara and its surroundings. As a matter of fact, the Company was selected by the Italian Institute of Culture in Ankara as the representative group for Italy to participate in the International Summer Festival of Ankara Castel. This celebration, organised by the Music Foundation-Association Sevda-Cenap and Tunali Hilmi of Ankara, gave the Sicilian group several acknowledgements on an international level, beyond interviews and critiques on the most famous Turkish daily papers, Turkish magazines in the English language and even an interview broadcast by the international Al-Jazeera Channel.
In the same year, La Giostra went to Malta on invitation by the Tourism Office of Malta and the Malta Tourism Authority to perform across the island. In particular, the Company participated in the historical re-enactment of the Count Ruggero defeating the Arabs on the island and freeing Christian slaves in 1091 A.C. The natural setting for this performance was the "City of Silence", the splendid Medina.
In December of the same year, on invitation of the local Italian General Consulate, La Giostra went to Nice to perform in the Theatre of the International Cultural Centre of Valbonne within a series of initiatives organised by the Consulate in collaboration with the COALCIT (Committee for the Linguistic and Cultural Italian Activities) and the French Cultural Ministry.
The Company was then selected to represent Italy at the International World Music Festival "Skamba Skamba Kankliai" in Vilnius, Lithuania in May 2006.
In August 2006, the Company was awarded the prestigious musical prize "Corrado Maranci" for their research and work in the promotion and spread of early folk and ethnic-medieval music. Finally, in November of the same year the Company travelled to Thailand where their performances at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and at the Royal Path and Amphitheatre at the Royal Flora International Festival (Chang Mai) were met with great success.
In February 2007, the company participated as special guest in the Venice Carnival and in March 2007 their third recording work, FABULARABULA, appeared through RAI TRADE/VIDEORADIO. Shortly thereafter, RAI TRADE and VIDEORADIO co-produced a compilation, entitled ETHNO – ELECTRIC – AMBIENT, where three new instrumental pieces of La Giostra are present.
In October 2007, the Company went to Finland for a series of shows, including a splendid performance at the prestigious Savoy Theatre in Helsinki. In December of the same year, the Company toured in Bolivia, stopping at the nation's capital, La Paz, and in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Cochabamba and Sucre. The group was able to perform in prestigious stages such as the Paraninfo Universitario of the Public University Gabriel René Moreno, the cathedral of Santa Cruz and the cultural centre "mARTadero".
At the start of 2008, the Company returned again as a special guest to the 2008 Carnival in Venice. The group then toured Portugal, passing through Almodovar (Beja) and Lagos (Algarve) and continued on to South Africa, performing at Johannesburg, Pretoria, East London, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and Cape Town.
Throughout the summer of 2008, La Giostra returned six times to the Iberian peninsula, performing both in Spain and Portugal as well as the Azores islands (stops along the tour included Belver, Monsanto, Óbidos, Coimbra, Ponta Delgada, Silves, Castro Marim and more). At the end of 2008, La Giostra represented Italy in Egypt, performing at the Cairo Opera House.
In April 2009, La Giostra returned triumphantly to Malta to participate in the Mdina Medieval Festival. The Company is currently working together with various international organizations and, thanks to this cooperation, the group is also able to carry out an intense artistic performances beyond the borders of Italy.









