Baronissi Blues Festival

International blues in the heart of the Irno Valley

The Baronissi Blues Festival is the premier event dedicated to the blues in Campania and, according to organizers and local press, the longest-running blues festival in the region. It takes place every July in Baronissi, a town in the province of Salerno overlooking the Irno Valley, just a few kilometers from the provincial capital and the motorway. Three consecutive nights, two concerts per evening, an open-air stage, and an audience arriving from across the province: this is the formula that has made the event a landmark for genre enthusiasts throughout Southern Italy.

An amphitheatre dedicated to Pino Daniele

The festival's home is the Pino Daniele Municipal Amphitheatre on Via Trinità, an open-air venue named in 2015 after the legendary late Neapolitan singer-songwriter, which has become Baronissi's true "home of music" over the years. The tiered seating sloping down toward the stage, the natural basin, and the mild July evenings create acoustics and an atmosphere that guest musicians often cite as one of the event's greatest strengths. A food area and a merchandising stand are set up next to the stage each year, ensuring the evening extends beyond the concert into a convivial social experience.

Eleven editions of great music

Founded in 2015 by the Tutti Suonati APS Cultural Association—established by Fabio Clarizia, Massimo Greco, and Giuseppe Pasquile—the festival has spanned over a decade, missing only the 2020 edition due to the pandemic. The artistic direction has been entrusted from the start to Fabio Clarizia, who curates a lineup every year aimed at representing, as he likes to say, "all the languages of the blues": from the Delta to the Chicago sound, and from electric blues-rock to soul, funk, and country influences. The Baronissi stage has hosted names such as Ana Popovic, Andy J. Forest, Nine Below Zero, Laurence Jones, Scott Henderson, Mike Zito, James Senese, and Irene Grandi.

The 2026 edition: three nights, six concerts

The eleventh edition took place from Sunday, July 19th to Tuesday, July 21st, 2026, with concerts starting at 9:00 PM and free admission subject to availability. Each evening, an opening band preceded the headline international artist:

• July 19th — Peppe o' Blues & Hell's Cobra, a historic band from Campania, followed by Kevin "Sonny" Gullage with The Blues Groovers, a young pianist and singer considered one of New Orleans' most promising talents;
• July 20th — The Frogs, an eight-piece band blending country, rock, and blues, followed by Eric Sardinas, a virtuoso of the dobro guitar and bottleneck technique;
• July 21st — The True Blues Band with a repertoire inspired by the Chicago school classics, and closing with Fantastic Negrito, a three-time Grammy Award winner, for the only Southern Italian date of his tour.

Free admission and popular appeal

One of the distinctive features of the Baronissi Blues Festival is that it is completely free: no tickets or reservations are required; entry is permitted until the amphitheatre reaches capacity. The event is funded by the Municipality of Baronissi with the support of local businesses and enjoys the moral patronage of the Campania Region and the Province of Salerno. The festival is part of the municipal summer program, alongside other events that animate the town between June and September.

Baronissi and the Salerno area

Baronissi is a town of approximately seventeen thousand inhabitants located along the Irno Valley, between Salerno and Avellino, and hosts part of the University of Salerno's departments. The town center preserves the Convento della Santissima Trinità, now home to the FRaC Museum of Contemporary Art, and hilltop hamlets that can be reached in just a few minutes. Its location makes it a convenient base for combining a night of music with a day in Salerno, on the Amalfi Coast, or among the temples of Paestum.