The Autumn Festival was conceived in 2003 by Maestro Antonietta Santacroce, who is also its artistic director, with the aim of contributing to improving the cultural and performing arts offer in Calabria.
Born as a baroque festival, in the fourteen years of its activity, it has slowly transformed into a wide-ranging musical kermesse, characterised by the coexistence of different musical genres (pop, rock, classical, jazz, blues, r&b), together with acting, ballet, and cultural deepening in the broadest sense.

The response from the media, the induced tourism in a period of low season and low attractiveness such as October and November, the ability to know how to structure itself over the years, the flattering references of the artists hosted, together with the interest and effective collaboration with the most important newspapers and regional and national television and radio media, certainly make it one of the most prestigious festivals in Southern Italy.

In particular, the Autumn Festival has become a historic event, which over the years has involved important personalities and artists of national and international renown in original productions, musical, theatrical and choreographic performances, conferences, debates and exhibitions.

Among the artists with whom the Association has collaborated are: Herbie Hancock, an authentic living legend of jazz; Tania Maria, the current undisputed queen of Brazilian music; Michele Placido, Giorgio Albertazzi, Monica Guerritore and Arnoldo Foà, icons of Italian cinema and theatre; Luis Bacalov, the most important Argentine musician and composer, winner of an Oscar; Al Di Meola and Paco de Lucia, the greatest guitarists in the world; Dionne Warwick, legendary American soul singer; Dee Dee Bridgewater, the famous Afro jazz singer, the legendary Manhattan Transfer, the Englishman Ray Gelato, the Israeli singer Noa, and famous Italian artists including: Nicola Piovani, Loredana Bertè, Al Bano, Franco Battiato, Lucio Dalla, PFM, Vinicio Capossela, Fabrizio Bosso, Nina Zilli, Stefano Bollani, Alex Britti, Neffa, Irene Grandi, Renzo Arbore, Ornella Vanoni, Fiorella Mannoia, Mario Biondi, Arisa and the Baustelle.

Guest speakers at the debate meetings include and conferences promoted, we recall eminent lay and religious personalities: His Eminence Cardinal Camillo Ruini, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference; Don Armando Matteo, Pippo Corigliano and Luciano Regolo, Mondadori writers; Mauro Anselmo, head of the cultural pages of Panorama; Massimo Milone director of Rai Vaticano, the famous art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, and many others.

Also important is the attention that the Festival pays each year to Calabrian artists and the dissemination of Calabrian works (e.g. Letterio di Francia’s Fairy Tales); thus contributing both to the dissemination of Calabrian artistic and cultural heritage and to that of Calabrian artists (actor Eugenio Masciari, the Giovanni Calabrò Dance Company, the Teatro Incanto theatre group, the QuartAumentata music group, etc.).

Catalysing the attention of the national public (thanks to the events offered as national exclusives), Autumn Festival therefore plays a fundamental role both in the cultural fabric, thanks to the performers of absolute international prestige with whom it regularly collaborates, and in the original productions it produces, and in the Calabrian economy, as a result of the cultural and entertainment activities promoted, creates induced revenue and increases city tourism in a period of low season (it takes place from October to December), while the operators offer a series of services that qualify and improve the initiative as a whole to the benefit of the user and the consequent promotion of the territory in a broad sense.

source: festivaldautunno.com