Every Friday morning in a community hall near Fremantle, something quietly extraordinary happens.
Chairs are arranged in a rough semicircle. Someone has brought a tray of biscotti from a recipe carried, unchanged, from Vasto, in the Abruzzo region of Italy. An organetto, a small button accordion common in southern Italian folk music, opens with a tarantella, a fast and joyful southern Italian dance tune. Before the first verse has ended, a dozen voices have joined. Some are strong. Some waver. All are unmistakably present.
