Notte della Taranta ('Taranta Night') is a

music festival A music festival is a festival, community event with music, performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock music, rock, blues, folk music, folk, jazz, classical music), nation ...

Salento Salento (; Salentino dialect, Salentino: ''Salentu''; Griko language, Salento Griko: ) is a Cultural area, cultural, List of historical states of Italy, historical, and geographic region at the southern end of the administrative region of Apuli ...

, Italy. The Notte della Taranta is focused on ''

pizzica ''Pizzica'' () is a popular Italian folk dance, originally from the Salento peninsula, in Apulia, and later spreading throughout the rest of Apulia and the regions of Calabria and eastern Basilicata. It is part of the larger family of tarantella ...

'', a popular folk genre in Salento, and takes place in various municipalities in the

province of Lecce The province of Lecce (; Salentino: ) is a province in the Apulia region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lecce. The province is called the "Heel of Italy". Located on the Salento peninsula, it is the second most-populous province in Ap ...

and the

Grecìa Salentina Grecìa Salentina (Griko for "Salento, Salentine Greece") is an area in the peninsula of Salento in southern Italy, near the town of Lecce which is inhabited by the Griko people, an ethnic Greek people, Greek minority in southern Italy who spea ...

, especially in

Melpignano Melpignano (Griko: ; Salentino: ) is a small town and ''comune'' in the province of Lecce in Apulia, Italy. It is one of the nine towns of Grecìa Salentina. Melpignano has a population of 2,209 inhabitants (called Melpignanesi) and an area of ...

. It gives great importance to the folk music tradition of '' taranta'' and ''pizzica'', and it is a resource for tourism in Apulia. The festival tours around Salento, normally culminating in a grand finale concert in Melpignano in August, which lasts until late night. An average of 120,000 spectators attend the last concert every year. The festival started in 1998 by an initiative of several municipalities of the Salento, which sponsored the event. Every year a new musical director is chosen. In 2015,

Ludovico Einaudi Ludovico Maria Enrico Einaudi OMRI (; born 23 November 1955) is an Italian pianist and composer. Trained at the Milan Conservatory, Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, Einaudi began his career as a classical composer, later incorporating other styles ...

released his album ''Taranta Project'', inspired by his time directing the festival.

References

Grecìa Salentina Folk festivals in Italy Music festivals established in 1998 Italian traditions {{Music-festival-stub