SARBAND is a unique ensemble founded in 1986 with the aim to demonstrate, through both concerts and research, the relationship between early European music and the musical cultures of Islam and their considerable consequence for contemporary music. The musicians play exclusively on replicas of medieval European instruments and on original Islamic instruments. Care is taken in choosing the programmes and musicians to ensure that the musical dialogue goes beyond the cultural taboos existing today between Christianity and Islam, that European and Arab instruments are both to be heard in Moslem Sufi Music proyers and ltalian religious songs. 

The roots of medieval music are to be found in the oriental musical cultures. Spain and Italy in particular were strongly influenced by musical elements from the oriental world: monophony, modal systems and rich ornamentation. These roots are frequently denied, the picture of Europe as the centre of the world is still deeply engrained in our consciousness whereas the influence of Islam on the Europe of the Middle Ages was considerable. It is often forgotten, for instance, that it was the Arabs from the world of Ancient Greece that introduced to a Christian Europe not only the teachings of natural sciences such as mathematics, astronomy and medicine but also poetry and musical theory. 

"Cantico" is a repertoire of 14th century songs of the mystical Islamic Sufi-Orders and devotional music of the medieval ltalian « laudesi » (brotherhoods of lay believers).