Carousel Gowett: Celtic Harp, Accordion, and Bal-Folk at Tapadum

Not all the music we host comes from the East. On January 25, we welcomed a duo rooted in the folk traditions of Western Europe — and the room responded warmly.

Thirteen people came. Eighty-six more had been thinking about it.

Carousel Gowett: A New Duo

Carousel Gowett is a freshly formed duo built around two instruments that share more common ground than they might appear to: Marta Celli on Celtic harp and Emiliano Benassai on accordion.

Their program for the evening moved through the rhythms and melodies of French bal-folk — the living tradition of popular dance music that has been revived and reimagined across France and Italy over recent decades — colored with touches of jazz and classical music. Mazurkas, both traditional and neo-traditional, formed the core of the set.

The Celtic harp is not a common sight in a small concert room in Faenza. Its resonance is immediate and intimate — a sound that fills a room without dominating it, leaving space for the accordion to breathe and phrase around it. Emiliano Benassai plays with the lightness that bal-folk requires: music meant to move bodies as well as ears.

Dancing as Part of the Evening

One detail that made this concert different from others in our series: someone was on hand to teach a few simple dances. Bal-folk is, at its core, participatory music — it exists in relationship to the body, to movement, to the social ritual of dancing together. Bringing that dimension into the room at Tapadum felt right.

Mazurkas are not complicated to learn in their basic form. Within a few minutes, even those who had never danced one before found their footing. The music helped — it is generous music, built to carry people along rather than impress them from a distance.

East, West, and the Space Between

In less than four months of concerts, Tapadum had hosted rebetiko from Naples, Anatolian folk from Ankara, Ottoman and Balkan music from two brothers with bagpipes and ouds, and now French bal-folk with Celtic harp and accordion. The range was not a policy decision. It reflected the reality of the music world we move in — one where traditions travel, musicians cross borders, and the most interesting evenings happen at the edges between one repertoire and another.

Carousel Gowett fit that spirit entirely. Marta and Emiliano were playing French music on instruments with Irish and Italian roots, in a store built by a Turkish luthier in the middle of Emilia-Romagna. That is exactly where Tapadum belongs.

Tapadum hosts concerts from across Europe and the Mediterranean. Explore our handcrafted instrument collection or follow our upcoming events.

Özgür Yalçın is the founder of Tapadum and the founding member of Karagüneş. He has performed ethnic and world music across Europe for over twenty-five years and builds custom instruments from Tapadum’s workshop in Brisighella, Italy.