Events

"La Notte della Taranta" is Italy's biggest music festival and one of Europe's most important events dedicated to traditional culture. It takes place in Salento and is dedicated to the re-discovery and valorisation of Salento's folk music and its fusion with other types of music – from world music to rock, from jazz to classical music.

The Festival's formula, which culminates in the "Final Concertone di Melpignano" (Lecce), is made unique by inviting a "Maestro Concertatore" to arrange and interpret classics from the local musical tradition, directing a group of nearly thirty musicians from Salento together with exceptional guests from Italy and abroad. The "Concertone" alone attracts around one-hundred and fifty thousand spectators, while tens of thousands follow the final rehearsals the day before.

The following "Maestri Concertatori" have contributed to the impressive growth of the "La Notte della Taranta" in the first fifteen years of the Festival, often continuing their collaboration with the Popular Orchestra in special occasions in Italy and abroad: Daniele Sepe (1998), Piero Milesi (1999 e 2001), Joe Zawinul (2000),Vittorio Cosma (2002), Stewart Copeland (2003), Ambrogio Sparagna (2004, 2005, 2006), Mauro Pagani (2007, 2008, 2009), Ludovico Einaudi (2010, 2011), Goran Bregovic (2012), and Giovanni Sollima (2013-2014), Phil Manzanera (2015), Carmen Consoli (2015)

This year, La Notte della Taranta is dedicated to Sergio Torsello, former artistic director of La Notte della Taranta who passed away last March.