Guido SODO, Neapolitan, has long been interested in traditional folk music of Southern Italy.

A graduate from the Ferrara School of Music, Guido Sodo studied classic guitar with Professor Maurizio Pagliarini, and completed various advancement courses, among these one with the Spanish musician Alberto Ponce and one with the French composer Roland Dyens.

Commissioned by the Bologna Cineteca, he has composed the music for some of the Cineteca's recently restored silent films, musical scores which were then performed live in New York, Paris, Haifa, Toulouse, Madrid, Bogotà, Buenos Aires, San Francisco and, in Italy, in various editions of the Festival del Cinema Libero, and the Festival di S.Arcangelo, as well as in other film institutes. The film Assunta Spina was broadcast by Telepiù and the French-German channel Arté.

Guido Sodo has collaborated as singer and instrumentalist with l'Ensemble Acantus with whom he also participated in various traditional folk music festivals and concerts, among these the Sagra Musicale Umbra, Il canto delle Pietre e Musica e poesia a San Maurizio in Italy; the Regensburg Festival in Germany, the Royamount in France, the Feldkirken in Austria, the Sete sois sete luas in Portugal and others, recording for the Symphonic Season of the European Radio and for the BBC. Guido Sodo participated with Acantus in the CD Acantus (1999, Gimell) and La vida de Colin. Among his collaborations in the sphere of medieval music, of noteworthy mention are the Tantris, Theatrum Instrumentorum and Salòn de Musiques ensembles. With the Salòn de Musiques, he played in a concert that was recorded by the National Croatian Radio in 2006 in Rovinj.

In 2007 he was invited to present his project on Neapolitan music, which dates from the origins to the 18th century in a vocal and instrumental quartet, at the Cusiano di Lago d’Orta Festival and the Due Castelli Festival in Croatia, a concert that was likewise recorded by the National Croatian Radio.

Over the years, Guido Sodo has been developing a project of original music inspired by the popular Neapolitan tradition and the Mediterranean basin with the Cantodiscanto, a group which he founded and with whom he has recorded 3 CD's: Cercando la terra (1997 and 2006 in re-edition, Ermitage), Medinsud (2001, Harmony Music), Malmediterraneo (2003, Forrest Hill Records) and Tutto il mondo è Paese (2010, imminent release). Malmediterraneo was classified in the World Charts Music Europe, a ranking of world music compiled by 50 specialized programmers of a European radio circuit; the song Malmediterraneo was listed in the fRoots Magazine compilation among the best European hits of world music. With Cantodiscanto, Guido Sodo won the Città di Recanati Prize for a song he composed. The group has participated in the principal Italian folk music Festivals (the Carpino Folk Festival, Le vie dei Canti in Milan, the Notte della Taranta in Salento, the Festival di Montalcino/Val d’Orcia, the Festival di Sant’Arcangelo dei Teatri and others), going on tour abroad in three editions of the Festival Sete sois sete luas in Portugal, Spain, France and Cape Verde, and also participated in the Italian ethnic music festival Cap Sud at the Theatre Royal of Mons (B) and Musicalischer Sommer in Baden Baden (D). In 2007, Cantodiscanto was awarded the prize Andrea Sacco – Voce del Gargano.

He has collaborated with other ensembles playing folk music from the South, among these Ghetonìa, Tarantula Rubra Ensemble, Demotika Orkestar and with artists linked to the Neapolitan folk music tradition, including: Alfio Antico, Enzo Avitabile, Antonio Infantino, Antonello Ricci, Patrizio Trampetti, Arnaldo Vacca, Marcello Vento and Tonino Zurlo, for whom he curated the musical arrangements and the artistic direction for the Cd Nuzzole e parole (2007, Anima Mundi).

Guido Sodo has also written and conceived music for the theatre, and as a performing stage musician worked with numerous actors including Marco Manchisi (Letture Eduardiane, 2000; Il corpo di Totò, 2005), Francesca Mazza (Nu pate teneva sette figlie femmene, 1997; Plurale femminile, 2001; Donne Resistenti, 2004; Fiabe nordiche, 2006; Una città perfetta, 2009), Angela Malfitano (Un sacchetto di biglie, 2005), Valentina Capone (Suite Lady, 2009) and Enzo Moscato (Embargos, 1995).

He directed the musical score and performed as a musician in Viviani's play Zingari directed by Davide Iodice and with Nino D’Angelo, Angela Pagano and other actors, a show produced by the Mercadante Repertory Theater in Naples that toured in 2006-2007 in all of the major Italian repertory theaters (Naples, Rome, Catania, Perugia, Ancona, Bari, Bologna, Modena). Also with the Mercadante Theater, he composed the music and performed on stage in Mimmo Borrelli's ‘A Sciaveca, directed by Davide Iodice, a play that was presented at the Spoleto Festival in 2008.

He is presently composing the music for Il Fanciullo Allegro, written by the bolognese playwright and actor Vittorio Franceschi.

For numerous years Guido Sodo has also been writing music for commercials, in particular, he conceived the music for the Parma Prosciutto ad (“Cappelli”) which was broadcast in Italy on national TV channels and the cinema in 2004, and for various ads for “Blend-a-med” toothpaste that were and continue to be broadcast on national TV channels in France, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Serbia Montenegro and Moldova, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus, Mongolia, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Malta, Saudi Arabia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Parallel to his concerts, he organizes didactic workshops, orientated towards the study of vocal and musical arrangements in folk music. Guido Sodo has also taught at the Scuola di Teatro of Bologna.