I Violini di Santa Vittoria are the only representatives of the musical tradition of Liscio (a type of ballroom music). They were born in 2001 as part of a wider project to rediscover the history of ballroom music in the Reggio Emilia area.
The first decades of the nineteenth century see the spread of new popular dances in the countryside near Reggio Emilia: waltz, mazurka and polka. The music came from faraway places but it immediately became popular, mixing its melodies, rhythms and a new way of playing with the old rural music that characterized this territory.
Liscio is born and this new trend in music becomes a rather unique phenomenon precisely in Santa Vittoria (in the province of Reggio Emilia). In Santa Vittoria the music was played with string instruments, in small orchestral groups of five players that were formed within each family. Towards the end of the nineteenth century this village becomes so legendary that the people of the lowlands near Reggio Emilia began to call it "Paese dei Cento Violini" (The Town of the Hundred Fiddles).
