As co-music director for the Boston-based folk group Newpoli, Carmen Marsico is often confronted with misconceptions about traditional Italian music.
"People think folk music from Italy is made up of songs like 'That's Amore,' " Marsico said. "I have to explain that that song is in English, not Italian, and it was written fairly recently."
The group, made up of alumni from the Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory, began performing in 2003 to represent Southern Italy, an area of the country that Marsico says doesn't get a lot of play in the traditional realm.
Newpoli, stopping through the Zuzi Theater tonight, specializes in the melodies from regions like Campania and Puglia, the shin and the heel of the country's iconic boot shape.
Genre styles vary, from the upbeat Tarantella to the vocally driven Neapolitan Canzone, with new arrangements of songs that reach all the way back to the Middle Ages.
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"It sounds totally like a world-fusion-type thing," Marsico said. "We have a lot of Middle Eastern influence in Southern Italy. We have North Africa influence and influences from Spain. There is a lot of percussion and a lot of old instrumentation. We have a little bit of everything."
Despite the strict Italian repertoire, the group itself is a multicultural affair. In addition to its Italian-born players, members hail from Albania, Japan, the United States and Sweden.
Marsico, who originally came to the States to study jazz and Brazilian music at Berklee, grew up in Northern Italy. But her family was originally from Basilicata, a 3,900-square-mile region on the Tyrrhenian Sea in Southern Italy between Campania and Puglia.
"I listened to that traditional music since I was a kid," she said. "This is what my parents listened to. I knew everything about it, even though I didn't realize it. My brain just absorbed it all growing up."
Her knowledge on the subject, combined with the knowledge of founding members such as Angela Rossi and Emiliano Loconsolo, has given the group a steady following in New England. Newpoli has even performed in Italy where its musical prowess was really put to the test.
"We had great success," Marsico said. "I didn't expect that at all. There were so many people there. They were dancing and bought so many CDs. They asked us if we were coming back next year. It was great."
If you go
Newpoli in concert
• When: 7:30 p.m. today.
• Where: Zuzi Theater at the Historic Y, 738 N. Fifth Ave.
• Tickets: $20 in advance and $23 at the door. 319-9966.
• Et cetera: Newpoli will play two more shows before it leaves Southern Arizona. The group will perform at La Misión de San Miguel in Patagonia at 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets for that show are $40 and reservations are required (1-888-202-1942). It will also play a free show in Tubac as part of World Music Days, Sunday. The event runs 11 a.m.-4 p.m. in Tubac Plaza.