Traditional & Contemporary Acoustic-Electric Italian Song 
Mebane, N.C. 

Mebanesville introduces and delights live audiences with the best in roots, rhythm, and world music from the Mediterranean Basin to the British and Irish Isles, while heading down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.  

Mebanesville has brought musica italiana popolare e moderna—traditional and contemporary--to audiences at some of the most popular clubs, wineries, restaurants, and concert stages, as well as universities and community organizations, in the Triangle and Triad of North Carolina, and beyond. The ensemble was a featured music guest on Frank Stasio’s syndicated radio program, The State of Things, on the PBS affiliate WUNC radio. 

The ensemble has also collaborated with film makers, cultural foundations, and theatre and dance companies, including PlayMakers Repertory Company at UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as the Paul Green Foundation, the Murphey School Radio Program, Odyssey Stage, and The Dance Cure, all based in Chapel Hill, NC; the Gallery Players in Burlington, NC; the Open Road Theatre and The Raleigh Little Theatre in Raleigh, NC; the Playwrights’ Forum in Greensboro, NC; and Artauro Productions in Durham, NC. 

Mebanesville’s latest album, “Town & Country,” was described by Times News (Burlington, NC) long-time cultural critic Charity Apple as, “(l)ike a typical Mebanesville performance, the album includes something ancient, something new, something borrowed, something brewed—but all thoroughly Mebanesville In the rendering.” NC Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green, describes Mebanesville’s album as “All praises for Mebanesville, Town & Country … a potent mixed brew of cultural entanglements that remind us over and over again how music tenderly invites us across both geographical and spiritual borders. Drink these songs slowly and fully as they open our hearts and arms wider!” 

Mebanesville co-founder, Loreins “Larry” Vellani, is the immediate descendant of Reggio Emilian (Arşâned Rèz) emigrants. Larry has performed with some of the most respected interpreters of social and narrative song and dance—in English, Italian, Spanish and Ukrainian--including Guy and Candy Carawan, Barbara Dane, Mimi Fariña, Ronnie Gilbert, Rhiannon Giddens, Beverly Grant, Si Kahn, Fran McKendree, Natalie Marrone, Michela Musolino, Holly Near, Bruce Phillips, Fabio Turchetti, Baldemar Velasquez, and Salvatore Villani. He also has performed with some of the Southeast most renowned traditional Anglo and Afro-American musicians, including Lonny Austin, Marvin Gaster, Tommy Jarrell, Lauchlin Shaw, Paul Taylor, and Joe Thompson. 

Larry and his Mebanesville Co-Founder and life-partner, Peggy Boswell, are citizens of the Republic of Italy as well as the United States. Larry is the recipient of the 2017 Outstanding Italian American in North Carolina for his contributions to the study and popular performance of Italian and Italian-American folk and contemporary music throughout North Carolina.

Learn More

Take a peek at Mebanesville here (and here) ahead of their Festa performance!