Discovering the landscape to the sound of music: the mission of Ambria Jazz

It's summertime in Italy, and it's not just the beaches that are filling up. The festival season is also in full swing, with music, literature, performing arts and cinema enlivening the squares and filling the auditoriums of this beautiful, culture-loving country. According to the website Trovafestival, there are over 400 events taking place in every corner of the peninsula between July and August. This varied and original offering aims to promote the arts, but also to showcase the region, its landscape and the communities that live there.

This is the case of Ambria Jazz, an event off the beaten track that promotes the little-known towns of Valtellina with a niche programme appreciated by around 4,500 participants a year. The project is characterised by a continuous search for new ideas, enriched by a focus on sustainability, social and gender inclusion, and the promotion of slow and responsible tourism.

Ambria Jazz was founded in the province of Sondrio in the Lombardy region in 2009 by a determined couple of mountain dwellers, Giovanni Busetto (artistic director) and Norma Ghizzo (administrative manager). They are supported by a large group of members and volunteers, that are all driven by a love for their territory and a desire to share it.

The 2025 edition, running from 15 June to 10 August, is divided into 17 stages for lovers of live music and mountain walks. Each event is free and takes place in a different alpine village, off the beaten tourist track, in locations that can often be reached on foot or by bike, thanks to the jazzcamminante initiative. This is a service designed to promote light mobility and a better understanding of the area. A few hours before the event, the festival sets a meeting point and provides the public with a guide who accompanies participants along the mountain paths and tells them about the history of the surrounding landscape. These include chestnut woods and terraces, typical features of the surrounding valleys, which are a legacy of past human transformation. The reward for those who choose a little exercise before the music is a front-row seat and a selfie with the musicians. Not to mention the pleasure of reducing their environmental footprint.

A new feature for the 2025 edition, themed ‘Souls’, is the Carta etica dello spettatore (Ethical Charter for Spectators), designed to provide guidance to the public on how to participate in events in a sustainable way, but without signage that would risk spoiling the landscape. “One thing we have learned in our training on sustainability,” explains Norma Ghizzo, “is that it is not enough to apply measures that reduce the impact of our festival, we also need to communicate them. That's why we came up with a lightweight tool that we bring to every event and that can be downloaded via a QR code”.

Among the upcoming events in an ever-expanding programme, we have chosen three dates to highlight. On 18 July, the ‘Diversity’ project will take to the stage at the Museo Barca Lariana in Pianello del Lario, featuring the voice of Diletta Longhi, accompanied by Giuseppe Sacchi (keyboards), Francesco Mascio (electric guitar) and Antonio Cicoria (drums). In addition to the jazz and world music concert, visitors will be able to admire the collection of boats preserved in the 19th-century spinning mill that houses the museum. For younger visitors, the programme includes the ‘Germogli sonori’ initiative: a workshop led by the artist Diletta Longhi herself, featuring choral improvisation in a circle.

On 26 July, it will be the turn of the Bottasso duo - arriving from Oslo on Interrail - who will perform in Ambria with their project ‘Postcards from Italy’. After the concert, the Parco delle Orobie Valtellinesi will offer interested spectators the opportunity to admire some Palaeozoic finds recently discovered in Val D'Ambria, described and explained by palaeontologists from the University of Pavia.

For the last event, Ambria Jazz crosses the border into Switzerland, to Selacina, on 10 August. The closing act is Fluct, a voice and bass duo, enriched by the collaboration of Federico Pierantoni (trombone). This event can be reached with the jazzcamminante and is linked to the local Chestnut Festival.

All Ambria Jazz concerts are light-hearted, often without a stage or chairs, with little or no amplification and in ever-changing locations, to promote slow, off-season tourism. The festival is aimed at all responsible souls who want to explore forgotten paths, hidden villages and unspoilt valleys to the sound of music.

© all pictures: marinamagri