Aquilonia Jazz Fest

Jazz arrives in the Alta Irpinia village

The Aquilonia Jazz Fest is a musical event that, since the summer of 2025, has brought jazz to the streets of Aquilonia, a small town in the province of Avellino, Campania, overlooking the Alta Irpinia area on the border with Basilicata and Puglia. The concept is as simple as it is effective: using the squares, scenic viewpoints, and local venues of the historic center as open-air concert halls, bringing intense nightlife back to a town of just a few thousand inhabitants for a few days.

The event is promoted by the Municipality of Aquilonia in collaboration with the "Dante Castucci" Pro Loco, under the artistic direction of Neapolitan guitarist Antonio Onorato, one of the most recognizable names in Italian Mediterranean jazz.

A debut that left its mark

The first edition took place from August 7 to 10, 2025, and immediately defined the festival's identity: a few days, many events, all with free admission. The inauguration on Thursday, August 7, at the Casa della Cultura, saw the participation of Mayor Antonio Caputo and Onorato himself; from then on, the town became a small jazz district for four days.

At the closing, the artistic director publicly thanked the town, speaking of the "power of jazz and the universal message of music," and announced that work was already underway for the second edition.

The format: concerts, books, and jam sessions

The festival program is divided into three daily moments, a structure that makes it easy to enjoy even for those arriving from out of town:

• Late afternoon, dedicated to the written word: presentations of music books, manuals for musicians, and author biographies, with the authors in attendance.
• Evening, at 9:30 PM, the main concert in Piazza Marconi or the picturesque Largo Belvedere, with the Alta Irpinia landscape as a backdrop.
• Nighttime, with jam sessions at the Midnight jazz bar along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, where guest musicians and young instrumentalists play together until two in the morning.

To complete the picture, in 2025, the local marching band paraded through the streets of the village, creating a successful dialogue between folk culture and jazz language.

Aquilonia beyond the stage

Visitors arriving in Aquilonia for the festival will find a territory with a strong cultural identity. The town houses an ethnographic museum dedicated to Irpinian peasant civilization, while nearby lies the Carbonara archaeological park, the ancient settlement destroyed by the 1930 earthquake, often called the "medieval Pompeii." In the surroundings, one can also visit the Abbey of San Vito, dating back to the 13th century, located next to an ancient oak tree.

It is a context that perfectly explains the spirit of the event: not a festival imposed from above, but a community project that combines quality music, local heritage, and village hospitality.

The 2026 edition

The second edition of the Aquilonia Jazz Fest is scheduled for August 8–10, 2026, as part of the annual program of the local Pro Loco associations. At the moment, the detailed schedule, including guest names and times, has not yet been released: it is best to follow the channels of the Municipality and the Pro Loco in the weeks leading up to Ferragosto, when the posters are usually published.

Why it's worth the trip

The Aquilonia Jazz Fest is one of those festivals that you experience rather than just watch: you move from a concert in the square to a street jam session seamlessly, with the real possibility of chatting with the musicians. For those who love jazz and the villages of the Campanian Apennines, it is an opportunity to discover an area of Irpinia still far from mass tourism.