Music Festival

On June 21st, when Pontelandolfo fills with notes

Every year, the summer solstice brings the Music Festival to all of Italy, and the village of Pontelandolfo, in the Municipality of the same name in the Province of Benevento, Campania, has chosen to make its voice heard within that vast, widespread calendar. It is not a festival with a monumental lineup, but a day of village music: it starts at noon and continues until evening, with the stones of the historic center serving as the backdrop.

The heart of the event is Piazzetta Concettina Biondi, one of those intimate spaces typical of the Campanian Apennine villages, where sound bounces off the facades and the audience gathers without barriers, simply in a circle around the musicians. It is a dimension that restores to live music what is lost in large arenas: the minimal distance between those who play and those who listen.

Local artists and open jam sessions

The formula chosen by the organizers favors participation over showcase. Alongside the local artists invited to perform, the program includes open jam sessions: anyone arriving with an instrument can join in, leading to encounters that no schedule could ever predict. The day thus alternates between structured moments and improvised ones.

• Performances by musicians and groups from the Sannio region, with repertoires ranging from folk songs to pop and rock;
• Open jam sessions, accessible to passing instrumentalists and singers;
• Folk entertainment provided by traditional groups from Pontelandolfo;
• Closing concert in the evening: in 2025, the grand finale was entrusted to the live performance of Malembà Eurofolk.

Ri Ualanegli, the folk soul of the village

The organization is managed by the Ri Ualanegli APS association, which in Pontelandolfo is more than just an event committee. The name comes from the local dialect: the ualano was the one who guided the plow, and the ualanegli were the boys who helped him in the fields. The folk group was born around 1920, stopped in the 1950s, and was reconstituted in the 1960s thanks to the work of Father Emilio Matarazzo; in 1978, it took the form of an artistic association and folk theater group.

Since then, Ri Ualanegli has performed Un Giorno... La Vita, a show that tells the cycle of existence through the four seasons with original songs and dances of the era, and the tarantella, the most spectacular dance in the repertoire, marked by the tambourine along with accordions and organettos. In 1985, the group won third place at the World Folklore Festival in Munich. Having this entity as the director of the Music Festival explains why, in Pontelandolfo, June 21st is not just a date on the national calendar but also an opportunity to listen again to the sounds of the peasant tradition of Sannio.

A European festival that reaches the villages

The Music Festival is the day that, every June 21st, coinciding with the solstice, fills streets, squares, parks, and cultural venues across half of Europe with free concerts. In Italy, the circuit is coordinated by the AIPFM together with SIAE and the Ministry of Culture, and participation happens municipality by municipality, association by association: from large cities to towns of a few thousand inhabitants, all on the same level. The 2026 edition, the thirty-second, has the theme The Voice of Places, dedicated to the bond between territories and artistic production, and in particular to choral traditions.

Pontelandolfo, the village that hosts the festival

Pontelandolfo stretches across the hills of the upper Sannio of Benevento. The current town was born around the year 980 and took the name Pontis Landulphi from the Lombard prince Landolfo, who according to tradition had a bridge built over the Lenta stream. A village of stone and memory, where the calendar fills with cultural and gastronomic events in the summer.

Those who arrive for the Music Festival find more than just a concert: a town that opens up and the possibility of discovering one of the least-traveled corners of inland Campania, far from the tourist routes of the coast.

Good to know

• Reference date: June 21st, the day of the Music Festival throughout Italy;
• Location: Piazzetta Concettina Biondi, historic center of Pontelandolfo (BN);
• Admission is free and open, as with all events in the national circuit;
• Outdoor event: in case of bad weather, it is advisable to check for any changes on the organizers' channels.