Apulia Antiqua – Sunrise Concert at Torre Mileto

A traveling early music festival in Puglia

Apulia Antiqua is one of the most refined early music festivals in Southern Italy. Founded in Monopoli and directed by maestro Giovanni Rota, the event is promoted by the Sentieri Armonici Association and has a distinctly itinerant spirit: every summer, it travels through churches, historic palaces, archaeological sites, and ancient coastal towers of Puglia to revive the repertoire of past centuries, performed on period instruments with philological rigor. Alongside the Baroque and Renaissance repertoire, the festival engages with folk music, contemporary research, and the sounds of the Mediterranean.

The San Nicandro Garganico stop at the foot of Torre Mileto

On its journey through the region, Apulia Antiqua reaches the Municipality of San Nicandro Garganico, in the Province of Foggia, every year for one of its most beloved events: the sunrise concert at the foot of the evocative Torre Mileto. The tower, eighteen meters high and mentioned as early as the 13th century among the watchtowers of the Adriatic coast, stands on a small sandy peninsula between the sea and the Lesina lagoon, at the point on the mainland closest to the Tremiti Islands. It is in this setting, at the northern tip of the Gargano, that the audience gathers before dawn to listen to music as the sun rises over the Adriatic.

The 2026 edition: Vito De Lorenzi and «Sonu220V»

For 2026, the Torre Mileto sunrise concert is scheduled for Saturday, July 25th at 5:30 AM, with free admission, as the closing event of the festival's summer section, «Prospettive». The star is frame drum virtuoso Vito De Lorenzi with the show «Sonu220V», a sonic journey weaving ethno-acoustic and electronic sounds, between Mediterranean rhythms and improvisation. A concert that expands the boundaries of early music toward contemporary research, in perfect harmony with the festival's traveling spirit.

A musical awakening on the Gargano coast

The sunrise concerts are the most poetic hallmark of Apulia Antiqua: you arrive in the dark, wait for the first light, and music accompanies the rising sun. The natural scenery of Torre Mileto — the cliffs, the Mediterranean scrub, the lagoon, and the silhouette of the Tremiti Islands on the horizon — transforms the listening experience into an immersive event, suspended between nature, history, and sound. Over the years, the Gargano stop has hosted diverse programs, from the medieval music of the Clerici Vagantes to concert accordion, testifying to the artistic curiosity of the direction.

Why attend

• Sunrise concert with free admission in one of the most beautiful coastal locations of the Gargano.
• Exceptional setting: the historic Torre Mileto between the sea and the Lesina lagoon.
• Quality programming curated by Giovanni Rota and the Sentieri Armonici Association.
• A traveling festival supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Puglia Region.
• The perfect opportunity to combine cultural tourism, nature, and great music on the Foggia coast.

For those visiting the northern Gargano in summer, the Apulia Antiqua stop in San Nicandro Garganico is an unmissable experience: music and landscape merge in an awakening that lingers in the memory.