A musical experience capable of intertwining art and landscape, memory and experimentation, and promoting the talent of emerging young artists alongside established international artists. The Ritratti Festival, directed by Antonia Valente, returns to Monopoli with an edition this year titled “Secret Codes – In Praise of Folly,” featuring 12 evening concerts, the Ritratti Exhibit, Breakfast with Bach, Ritratti sui tetti/Find Me sections, Kids workshops, Ritratti Talk, and two spin-offs in September, as well as the usual surprise Ritratti à la carte. In a festival always shaped and shaped by its community, the musicians of the 21st edition will lead the audience by the hand to explore the secret codes and mysteries of art.
The first event is scheduled for July 3rd with the section “Ritratti Exhibit – Angeli, Sogni, Muse” dedicated to contemporary art, which this year features the presence of photographer Francesco Zizola, winner of ten World Press Photo and six Picture of the Year International awards, currently curator of the Rome edition of the Prize at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni. At 6:30 pm, a talk-interview with the artist will be held, conducted by Fabio Macaluso and Sara De Carlo in the Food Lab of the Rendella Library for the presentation of the photographic installation IN PROFUNDIS LUX, which inaugurates the month of July and the busy calendar of events. The exhibition opening will take place at 8:00 PM in the Church of Sant’Angelo, followed by a concert (at 9:00 PM) titled “Devils, Saints, Bagpipes” featuring the Furano Sax Quartet, accompanied by Monavrìl, who will perform original music by Giuseppe Moffa on bagpipes and Alberto Napolitano. This amplifies the evocative power of the installation, creating a multisensory experience in which music and images merge, revealing the secret codes of art. The exhibition will remain open until August 1st, and a second concert is scheduled for July 23rd. The Meridies Cello Ensemble will perform “Sorella Acqua,” narrated by Erminio Truncellito (9:00 PM, Church of Sant’Angelo).
The beating heart of the Festival are the artists who have accepted the invitation of the artistic direction to participate in the musical program as a resident ensemble, which this year includes: the flautists Leonardo Grittani and Alessandro Turi, the clarinetist Angelo Montanaro, the horn player Emanuele Urso, the bassoonist Luca Franceschelli, the oboist Gianluca Tassinari, the violinists Sara Dionisia Zeneli and Lorenzo Rovati, the violists Nora Romanoff Schwarzberg, Davide Montagne and Giuseppe Russo Rossi, the cellists Konstantin Pfitz, Cosimo Carovani, Gabriel Ureña and Giovanni Crivelli. Also the double bass players Nicolò Zorzi and Dunja Popovic, the percussionists Jona Muscia, Diego Basile, Davide Caputo and Rosa Montañes Cebriá, the guitarist Massimo Felici, the pianists Marcos Madrigal, Alessandro Stella, Stephanie Gurga and Irene Alfageme and Antonia Valente herself.
Each event is an invitation to discover music in a new way, with site-specific events that enhance Puglia’s historical heritage and make classical music truly accessible to all. From author conversations to concerts, from sound installations to workshops, with concerts held in venues normally inaccessible to the public, with a rich program of cross-pollination, Ritratti confirms itself as one of the most original and fascinating summer musical events in Southern Italy.
The concerts, all scheduled to begin at 9:00 pm, are naturally at the heart of the program. The first two events will be held at Lama Sottile – Camping Santo Stefano. The 21st edition of the Ritratti Festival will open with the magnetic voice of Cristina Donà and the talented multi-instrumentalist Saverio Lanza with “Spiriti Guida,” a show that traces a thread between Donà and Lanza’s original repertoire and the artists who nourished and inspired their journey, as guiding spirits: from Battisti to the Bee Gees, from Monteverdi to the Beatles, Sinead O’Connor, Battiato, Suzanne Vega, Bowie, and others (July 21); and “El Duende” – Maria de Buenos Aires and other stories of Tango, featuring bandoneonist Marcelo Nisinman, singer Anne-Lise Binard, storyteller Crescenza Guarnieri (July 24), and the Ritratti Festival Ensemble.
The Cloister of Palazzo San Martino will host (also starting at 9 pm): the concert twinned with the La Habana Clásica Festival with pianists Marcos Madrigal and Alessandro Stella in dialogue with the soloists of Ritratti 2025: La Habana Classica – L’utopia della musica (July 26); followed by the concert The Book of Dreams by Federico Fellini with music by Prokofiev (Trapeze Quintet and Overture on Jewish Themes) and of course Nino Rota (Nonetto and Small Musical Offering) (July 29) performed by the resident ensemble. The concert will be enriched by a special video mapping created by Hermes HEM Mangialardo. In the darkness – Concerto al buio is the title of the concert (August 2) entrusted to the hands of the American pianist Stephanie Gurga. An immersive experience with Lorenzo Rovati and Sara Dionisia Zeneli, Nora Romanoff Schwarzberg and Giuseppe Russo Rossi, Gabriel Ureña Hevia, and Giovanni Crivelli performing Arnold Schoenberg’s sextet masterpiece Verklärte Nacht and music by Debussy, Couperin, Ravel, Messiaen, and Zemlinsky. The program also features a commissioned work by composer and electronic performer Gabriele Panico, inspired by the poetic texts of Dehmel, Campana, and Buzzati.
The festival will continue with its eagerly awaited live soundtrack performance of silent film masterpieces at the Teatro Radar Roof Garden (August 5). Following (August 7), Ritratti presents Codes of Friendship, a program dedicated to the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, fifty years after his death: the focus of the evening is his XV Symphony, David Lynch’s most beloved, in an unusual and spectacular chamber version composed by Viktor Derevyanko and performed by Jona Muscia, Diego Basile, Rosa Montañés Cebriá, Lorenzo Rovati, Konstantin Pfitz, and Stéphanie Gurga. The program opens with the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Weinberg, a close friend of Shostakovich, performed by Angelo Montanaro and Irene Alfageme. And finally, Eau de Ravel, to celebrate Maurice Ravel’s 150th birthday, with world-star harpist Claudia Lamanna (10 August) and musicians Alessandro Turi, Angelo Montanaro, Sara Dionisia Zeneli, Lorenzo Rovati, Giuseppe Russo Rossi and Cosimo Carovani.
New initiatives on the calendar include “Breakfast with Bach” – Breakfasts with the Maestro, to start the day in the company of the great father of Music (July 25 and July 31 at Bistrot N24; August 4 at Marè and August 8 at Bistrot N24. Meetings always at 9 am); “Portraits on the Roofs” – “Find me” – secret dates on terraces overlooking the historic center, to be discovered like a treasure hunt with a meeting point at 7 pm at Palazzo Martinelli (July 25 “Find Bineta”; July 27 “Find Sara”; July 31 “Find Gabriel”, August 4 “Find Giuseppe” and August 9 “Find Us – Goodbye R2025”). And then there is the third edition of “Ritratti Exhibit – Angeli, Sogni, Muse”, the exhibition section dedicated to contemporary art, which this year features the presence of the artist Francesco Zizola, and which also includes three “concerts in exhibition” in the Church of Sant’Angelo (July 3 at 9 pm with Diavoli, Santi, Zampogne with the Furano Sax quartet; July 23 at 9 pm Sorella acqua with the Meridies Cello Ensemble, with the narrative voice of Erminio Truncellito; and July 30 at 9 pm with Duo del Gesù with Arnaud Kaminski, violin, and Christoph Tymendorf, viola, in collaboration with the Euro Chamber Music Festival Gdansk); the children’s workshop TWICE UPON A TIME… Theatre without words for “Ritratti Kids” (16, 23, 30 July and 3 August always at 4.30 pm at the Rendella Library, Sala Prospero), the “Ritratti talk” (3 July with Francesco Zizola, 23 July “Dreams and myths” with Francesco Paolo De Ceglia and Lorenzo Leporiere (Uniba) at 7 pm at Palazzo Mulini; 28 July at 7 pm at Palazzo Mulini “Fellini and Rota” with Nicola Scardicchio interviewed by Livio Costarella; 30 July at 7 pm at Casa B66 “Garcia Lorca – Game and theory of Duende” with Antonella Sardelli and Andrea Bitonto; 1 August at 7 pm at the Rendella Library, “Before it’s light out” by the student collective MSA / Radio Omnibus; 5 August at 7 pm at Casa Solomare “David Lynch / Dmitrij Shostakovich – Architects of the Unconscious” with Gabriele Panico and Michele Casella; August 6 at 7 pm at the Rendella Library “La Tornanza” with Antonio Prota and Flavio Albano; August 8 at 7 pm at the Rendella Library with the musicians of the “Eau de Ravel” concert; “Ritratti à la carte” on the ever-anticipated and unpredictable Van set up as a traveling stage, and two “Spin-off” events in September (September 1 with Giorgia Angiuli and September 7 with Eugenio Finardi).
Ritratti Festival 2025 is organized under the high patronage of the European Parliament, with the support of MiC, the Puglia Region – Department of Culture, Protection and Development of Cultural Enterprises, Migration Policies, Legality and Social Anti-Mafia, Pact and Piiil Cultura, the City of Monopoli – Department of Culture, and benefits from the active collaboration of a network of important partners: the Academy of Fine Arts of Bari, the Conservatory “Nino Rota” Music Festival, Teatro Radar/Bari Theaters, Misericordia Monopoli, Friends of San Salvatore Association, Acquedotto Pugliese, La Tornanza, Imago Social Cooperative, Puglia Tourist Information. Technical partners of the festival: Maurizio Meo Soluzioni espositivi, Cantine TorreVento, Nuova Neon, Farina pianos.
The Festival is also made possible thanks to the tax exemption program supporting new forms of patronage, the Art Bonus, for which we thank Hello Group, Puglia Real Estate Management, Puglimpianti Servizi Fasano, Fratelli Gentile, Farmacia San Francesco da Paola Monopoli, Bcc Alberobello Sammichele e Monopoli, and Dimola srl.
Ritratti Festival 2025 enjoys the national media partnership of Rai Radio3 Classica and the regional media partnership of Radio Puglia.
All updates and the complete program are available at: