Fai Bei Suoni

A festival inside the saxophone museum

Fai Bei Suoni is the summer music festival held at the Saxophone Museum in Maccarese, a district of the Fiumicino municipality in the Metropolitan City of Rome, Lazio. The museum, which hosts the world's largest collection of saxophones, is more than just an exhibition space: for years, it has served as a musical hub for the Roman coast, offering an indoor winter concert season and, from June to July, this open-air festival that brings the public into the garden, in front of a stage set up among the trees.

The formula has remained the same since the very first editions and is one of the keys to its success: you arrive in the evening, enjoy an optional aperitif served in the outdoor space, and then attend the concert once the heat of the day has faded. The audience is largely composed of locals from Fiumicino, Maccarese, Fregene, and Torre in Pietra, but the festival also attracts enthusiasts from Rome, which is about a forty-minute drive away.

A program that crosses musical boundaries

The heart of Fai Bei Suoni is jazz, interpreted in a broad and generous sense. Over the years, the stage has hosted projects dedicated to early jazz and archaic blues, stride piano and barrelhouse from the 1920s and 30s, Italian swing, soul, and funk in the New York and New Orleans style, as well as singer-songwriter music and chamber music. There is no shortage of experimental evenings, with original productions that weave together music, cinema, and storytelling, or tributes to the great performers of Italian and international pop music.

A distinctive feature of the festival is its focus on dance: on several occasions, swing concerts have been accompanied by dancers and short lindy hop lessons open to the public, turning the evening into a participatory experience rather than a passive listening session. It is a way to restore the original function of 1920s and 30s music: getting people to dance.

Why the saxophone

The choice of repertoire is no coincidence. The Saxophone Museum was born from a passion for collecting the instrument invented by Adolphe Sax, and it tells its history, from the first 19th-century creations to contemporary models. The evenings of Fai Bei Suoni are the natural extension of this narrative: giving a live voice to the instruments that remain silent in their display cases, showing how the saxophone has traversed classical music, jazz, light music, and pop.

The festival is directed by the Torre in Pietra Musical Study Center, the association that manages the museum and has been providing music education in the area for years. Some editions have received institutional patronage, confirming the project's deep roots in the cultural fabric of the Fiumicino municipality.

Environment and atmosphere

• Open-air space: concerts are held in the museum garden, with seating and an outdoor stage.
• Optional aperitif: served before the concert, by reservation, for those who want to make the evening a complete outing.
• Live ensembles: quartets, quintets, brass ensembles, chamber music duos — no two evenings are the same.
• Museum visit: the permanent collection is open to visitors, and the festival is the perfect opportunity to discover it.

The setting: Maccarese and the coast

Maccarese is an agricultural district on the coast north of Fiumicino, born from 20th-century land reclamation and now known for its historic farm, its beach, and its proximity to the Roman Coast State Nature Reserve. The area is just minutes from Leonardo da Vinci Airport and the beaches of Fregene: festival-goers can easily combine the concert with a day at the seaside. It is a corner of Lazio that is less touristy than Rome but has its own vibrant cultural life, of which the Saxophone Museum is now one of the most recognizable landmarks.