Barezzi Festival is a cultural experience that bridges the past and the contemporary. Inspired by the figure of Antonio Barezzi, patron and first supporter of Giuseppe Verdi, the festival carries forward his legacy of passion and faith in music as a form of art and personal growth. It was born within the 19th-century theatres of Emilia, places of extraordinary beauty where every concert becomes an intimate encounter with sound and history, a dialogue that engages all the senses.

Beneath the majestic vaults of the Teatro Regio di Parma and within the gems scattered across the Parma region, from the Teatro Verdi in Busseto to the Magnani in Fidenza, music becomes breath, vibration, living memory. The lighting, the velvets and the scents of these venues evoke a unique sensory experience, far removed from the impersonal spaces of large-scale events. Sound, like a BReZZa (breeze) drifting through the centuries, renews the soul of these places and intertwines with the flavours, voices and images of the region.

Over several days, the festival transforms Parma and its surroundings into a vast soundscape, where places of memory become places of the soul. It offers an intimate and shared experience, far from the noise of the world, celebrating the regenerating power of music and the profound pleasure of true listening.

Barezzi Festival is not a place where you miss the band you’re interested in because you’re queuing for an improbable sandwich or a warm beer, where you hear your favourite song echoing from afar while waiting for your turn to use the restroom, or where you find yourself attending the birthday party of a certain Giorgina, surrounded by ‘best wishes to her.’ Even worse, you might be disturbed by a choir because, apparently, there’s a nice person next to you who’s not for you. In a playful way, this illustrates that after many years, experiences, and sacrifices, the now mature Barezzi Festival is aware of what it is and, above all, what it wants to be and offer. So, every year on the second weekend of November, you can travel to Parma and prepare for three genuine days of music, gastronomy, and art, with concerts by artists from around the world. And if you can’t wait for November, discover The Barezzi Way.

After the wonderful experience of 2023, which included the first collaboration in Reggio Emilia and the sold-out performance of Calexico’s only Italian date, the Barezzi Festival has decided to keep moving forward. It plans to use the rest of the year to explore new paths, discover, and engage with other realities outside the walls of Parma throughout November.

Thus, the Festival is inaugurating a new initiative: each year, the Barezzi Way will feature concerts in unique and evocative locations outside the Parma region, allowing audiences to experience a fragment of the Barezzi Festival’s essence.

 

The Best of Independent Music

The new explorations of the Barezzi Way are complemented by the Barezzi Off concerts. At Borgo Santa Brigida in the late evening, we now have a fixed appointment. The most interesting and talented artists from the independent scene call this place home. These musicians may not necessarily belong to mainstream or commercial circuits but are well-known to a large audience of fans. Their records represent extraordinary expressive novelties, becoming cult objects. This provides an opportunity, within the Barezzi Festival, for a genuine insight into highly talented artists. The night is Barezzi Off, and when you wake up, the gastronomy and art of Parma await you.