Over the past 30 years, he has been tirelessly engaged in recovering, studying, reviewing, archiving, performing, recording, and promoting thousands of works of concentration camp music. He has recovered over 9,000 scores—often produced under conditions deprived of the most basic human rights, in concentration, extermination, and civilian and military prison camps around the world between 1933 (the opening of KZ Dachau) and 1953 (the death of Joseph Stalin and the amnesty for Gulag prisoners), that is, from the rise of National Socialism to the end of Soviet Stalinism—approximately 12,500 documents of music production in the camps (microfilms, diaries, music notebooks, phonograph recordings, interviews with surviving musicians), and over 3,000 university publications, essays on concentration camp music, and musical essays produced in the camps. This unique archive was created through travel and encounters with the authors and custodians of these precious artistic testimonies imbued with humanity.

He is the author—as pianist, organist, and conductor—of the 24-volume encyclopedia CD KZ Musik (Musikstrasse - ICML), containing 407 works written in civil and military captivity during the Second World War, and of the Anthology of Concentration Camp Music. He is currently working on the edition of the encyclopedia Thesaurus Musicae Concentrationariae , a monumental multi-volume work dedicated to the music written in the concentration camps and all their composers. This immense artistic and human legacy that Francesco Lotoro has managed to assemble is the foundation of the Fondazione Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionari , established in 2014 by the musician with a small group of other founding members in Barletta, the Apulian city where the Cittadella della Musica Concentrazionaria will be created, the largest hub in the world dedicated to the music produced in the camps; a place where Lotoro's dream becomes history, an artistic, cultural, and spiritual treasure for all.

Lotoro's work to date in the field of concentration camp music has attracted widespread international interest and recognition: in 2013, the French Ministry of Culture named him Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres, followed in 2014 by the title of Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and in 2023 by the title of Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, conferred by Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Also in 2023, he received the Pasquale Rotondi Prize - Europe for Saved Art, for his long-standing commitment to saving music written in concentration camps around the world. Furthermore, two important editorial works have been dedicated to Lotoro and his research: the book "Le Maestro: A la recherche de la musique des camps" by French author Thomas Saintourens (translated in Italy by Piedmontese publishers and in the Czech Republic by Volvox), and the documentary film Maestro by Franco-Argentine director Alexandre Valenti, an Italian-French co-production broadcast in 2017 on France 2, France 5, RAI 3, RTVP 2 (Portugal), and in cinemas worldwide. He is currently involved in the 100 VIAGGI project, conceived by Donatella Altieri, in search of the last surviving musicians and their works.