Villaricca "Sergio Bruni" Award - Neapolitan Song in Schools

An award born in the hometown of Sergio Bruni

The Villaricca "Sergio Bruni" Award - Neapolitan Song in Schools is one of the longest-running cultural initiatives in the municipality of Villaricca, located north of the Naples metropolitan area in Campania. Conceived by poet Salvatore Palomba, author of the lyrics to "Carmela", the award was established in 2003 by the Municipality of Villaricca and the local Pro Loco, in collaboration with the Regional School Office for Campania.

The dedication is no coincidence: Villaricca is the birthplace of Sergio Bruni, born here in 1921 and recognized as one of the great guardians of the artistic and cultural tradition of Neapolitan song. In 2021, the city celebrated the centenary of his birth, and in October of that same year, a wing of the Ada Negri school was named after the master.

A competition that speaks to young people

The stated goal of the award is to stimulate interest among the youth in the Neapolitan language, poetry, and song, encouraging them to rediscover the roots and fundamental values of their own culture. The competition is aimed at students in the fifth grade of primary school and pupils in lower and upper secondary schools in the Villaricca area; in the most well-attended editions, dozens of schools from Naples and its province have responded to the call, with hundreds of entries submitted.

The works are divided into several sections:

• Written essays on Neapolitan song and its history;
• Poems in the Neapolitan dialect composed by students;
• Graphic and pictorial works depicting a Neapolitan song;
• Multimedia files inspired by classics of the Neapolitan repertoire.

The entries are evaluated by a jury of experts chaired by Salvatore Palomba himself and composed, among others, of municipal councilor Giovanni Granata, Pro Loco vice-president Tommaso di Nardo, Bruno Palmieri for the school administration, and journalist Angela Fabozzi.

The awards ceremony in the Villa Comunale

The most anticipated moment is the awards ceremony, which is traditionally held in the Villa Comunale of Villaricca, on Corso Italia, as part of the "Homage to Sergio Bruni" event promoted by the Municipality and supported by the Metropolitan City of Naples. In the ninth edition, the ceremony took place on a Friday, starting at 7:30 PM, before an audience of families, teachers, and enthusiasts.

Winners do not receive mass-produced plaques but rather works of art created by students from the Palizzi Art, Dance, and Music High School of Naples, who also enliven the evening with musical and choreographic performances developed through the "Sergio Bruni and Neapolitan Song" educational program, built in partnership with Pro Loco Villaricca. It is a detail that perfectly captures the spirit of the event: it is the students who reward their peers.

Villaricca and the memory of the master

An entire calendar of initiatives dedicated to Sergio Bruni revolves around the award: photographic exhibitions curated by the Pro Loco in the spaces of Palazzo Somma-Baldascini, home to the municipal library, as well as literary meetings, school seminars, and concerts in the amphitheater of the Villa Comunale. In June 2025, the city dedicated two consecutive evenings of music and imagery to the singer, confirming how alive his figure remains within the community.

Why it is worth attending

This is not a large-scale festival or an event designed for mass tourism: it is a community cultural stronghold, one of the few in Campania that places classic Neapolitan song in the hands of students rather than leaving it solely to professional stages. Those in Villaricca during the award days will find a sober and sincere evening, with poems in Neapolitan read by teenagers, drawings on display, and voices bringing back the repertoire that Sergio Bruni made immortal.

The history of the award

After the long suspension imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the passing of the historic Pro Loco president Armando De Rosa, the award has returned to being held, a sign of a continuity that has lasted for over twenty years. As early as the seventh edition, awarded in February 2011, about forty schools from Naples and its province participated with dozens of poems and over one hundred drawings: numbers that demonstrate how well the project has rooted itself in the school fabric of the Neapolitan hinterland.