The streets of the Ward are rich in tales rooted in the folklore of Italian immigrants such as Germano and Maria Bortolon, the grandparents of twin sisters Sarah and Emma Bortolon-Vettor aka Bonnie Trash.
“There were a lot of people who came here from the Region of Veneto and San Zenone in the 50s and 60s,” said Emma. “Our grandparents on the Bortolon side were part of that. In fact, Guelph is the sister city of La Castellana, Provincia di Treviso, Italy.”
They brought with them food, wine and music as well as a shared faith, history and language that continue to influence the culture of Guelph.
“We are second generation and we ended up being friends with people whose parents knew our parents and whose grandparents were on the same boat as our grandparents,” said Sarah.
Stories from the old country were cultural staples and with each retelling they took on new significance.
“Nonno and Nonna Bortolon have old paintings of San Zenone and growing up we would ask about them,” said Emma. “One is of the Tower of Ezzelino. We were told he was a medieval tyrant and he ate people. These are the stories we consumed and that is one story that really stuck with us.”
Their parents Larry Vettor and Anna Bortolon recognized the twins’ early passion for music and enrolled them in piano lessons with teacher Nancy King at the age of seven.
“Closer to 11 or 12, Emma picked up guitar and I picked up the drums,” said Sarah. “Emma was taught by Adrian Raso and I was taught by Nick Macerollo.”
Their uncles Brian and Lore Bortolon, were also mentors as professional musicians and founding members of the Guelph-based band Farmer.
“When we were 14, we recorded our first full-length album with our band Red Rosary,” said Emma.
In 2009, Red Rosary played the Hillside Festival and a year later they returned with a new band, The Folk. They toured and recorded with The Folk for six years and established their own production company, F-Pop.
After the release of The Folk’s second full-length album Every Colour Present Wonder, the sisters took a break to focus on a solo project called Bonnie Trash.
Pairing things down to just the two of them allowed for more self-reflection and experimentation.
“When you have that many people in a group there is this constant drive to fill up the empty space,” said Emma. “I think it was Mozart who said ‘The music is not in the notes but the silence in between’.”
They explored that silence for deeper and darker themes, and in the process journeyed back to the hills and medieval myths of Italy. They collected ambient sounds from the region and recorded the voices of their Zio and Nonna Maria to use on the record.
The result is a haunting and cathartic, pseudo-psychedelic, six-track EP called Ezzelini’s Dead.
It draws on the story of Ezzelino III da Romano a medieval tyrant who joined in an alliance against the Pope with a Germanic faction called the Ghibellines. He was eventually defeated by a Papal collective called the Guelph League.
Ezzelino’s taste for human flesh was legendary and the poet Dante wrote about meeting him in the seventh level of hell in his epic poem the Divine Comedy.
“The EP is kind of an ode to those who were eaten and killed by Ezzelino,” said Sarah.
The Bortolons see their reinterpretation of the story as a way of reclaiming the myth for their generation and identifying their place in the Italian Diaspora. The concept of cannibalism is used as a metaphor for transformation.
“You have this history of people who are part of this medieval history and they move here to the City of Guelph and become Guelphites all over again,” said Emma. “This story is a part of our culture that has been buried. We consume the story and transform and are able to spread that story again.”
Bonnie Trash will celebrate the release of Ezzelini’s Dead at eBar this Friday. Doors open at 9:45 p.m. Admission to this licensed all-ages event is $10 at the door.