Casaline Fest

A festival that reignites the Casaline

In the heart of Irpinia, just a few kilometers from Avellino, the small town of Torre Le Nocelle preserves an ancient core that locals have always called "le Casaline": a maze of alleys, arches, and stone houses gradually emptied by depopulation. This name inspired the Casaline Fest, an artistic and cultural festival for inland areas that the Pro Loco of Torre Le Nocelle APS has organized every autumn since 2022, with the patronage of the municipal administration, to restore life and meaning to these spaces through art, music, and local traditions.

It is not a food festival and it is not just a concert series: it is a widespread festival that occupies squares, courtyards, the former oratory, and the village alleys, designed as a collective reflection on the fate of the towns in the Campanian Apennines. Each edition is built around a specific theme, which guides the performances, exhibitions, and debates.

Live music, theater, and roving performances

The musical program is the backbone of the festival, blending singer-songwriter styles, Southern folk music, electronic sounds, and experimentation. Over the years, the Casaline stage has hosted artists from the Campanian and Irpinian scenes, while roving performances, staged readings, theater shows, and ritual moments around the fire take place in the alleys to kick off the evenings.

• evening concerts in the main village square
• performances blending folk music, electronics, and dance
• staged readings, theater, and storytelling in the historic center
• late-night DJ sets and musical processions

Widespread exhibitions, photography, and workshops

A significant part of Casaline Fest is dedicated to the visual arts. The art exhibition, hosted in the former oratory and—in more recent editions—spread across various spaces in the village, creates a path that brings together established artists and young emerging local talents. Alongside the exhibitions, there are artistic workshops open to everyone: darkroom and analog photography, printing techniques like monotype and anthotype, and activities for children and families.

Debates, grain, and the future of inland areas

Every year, the festival dedicates space to debates and conferences: philosophical meetings on the edition's theme, reflections on the rural economy, workshops on ancient grains curated with local partners, and in-depth looks at the folk culture of the Irpinian Apennines. This is the most "militant" part of Casaline Fest, which reinterprets historic villages as places of potential return rather than just abandonment.

The flavors of Irpinia

No Irpinian festival can exist without good food. In the alleys, food stalls run by Pro Loco volunteers offer local peasant dishes, while local producers showcase their goods in a small zero-kilometer food market. The province of Avellino is a land of great wines—Taurasi, Greco di Tufo, and Fiano di Avellino—and tastings naturally accompany the evenings. Sunday is traditionally reserved for the convivial lunch, the concluding and most communal moment of the festival, often paired with a vintage car and motorcycle rally that travels through the town's streets.

The editions and their themes

The festival's journey can be traced through the titles chosen year by year: "L'Ascesi" (Asceticism) for the first edition in 2022 (October 7-9), "La Peregrinazione" (The Pilgrimage) in 2023 (October 6-8), "La Ripetizione" (The Repetition) in 2024 (October 4-6), and "L'Intervallo" (The Interval) in 2025 (October 3-5), understood as a fertile time for listening and awareness, an alternative to the pace of production and consumption.

When it takes place

Casaline Fest is held consistently on the first weekend of October (three days, from Friday to Sunday), when the Irpinian air turns crisp and the grape harvest has just concluded. Torre Le Nocelle is located in Campania, in the province of Avellino, a short distance from the Calore Valley and the Taurasi villages: an ideal stop for those who want to discover authentic Irpinia, far from mass tourism circuits.