The Puglia Region approves the program agreement for the Citadel of Concentrationary Music

A glimpse of the former Barletta Distillery, on whose site the Citadel of Concentrationary Music will be built.

On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day celebrations, which commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, a significant step forward has been taken in the process leading to the creation of the Citadel of Concentration Camp Music on the site of the former Barletta Distillery. Yesterday, the Puglia Regional Council approved the draft Program Agreement between the Ministry of Culture - Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Barletta and Foggia, the Superintendency of Archives and Bibliography of Puglia, the Puglia Region, the Province of Barletta, the Municipality of Barletta, and the Foundation of the Institute of Concentration Camp Music and Musical Literature (chaired by musician Francesco Lotoro) for the creation, enhancement, management, and promotion of the Citadel of Concentration Camp Music , the international hub that will house the monumental archive of music written in concentration camps and other places of civilian and military captivity between 1933 and 1953. A priceless cultural heritage, protected by the Ministry of Culture as being of particular historical and cultural interest, which the Barletta-born pianist, composer, and conductor Francesco Lotoro has collected thanks to over thirty years of musical research conducted around the world.

This relentless research has allowed Lotoro to rescue over eight thousand scores spanning every musical genre (from great symphonic masterpieces to cabaret songs to folk songs), 12,500 documents on musical 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 other musical essays produced in the camps.

The Mayor of Barletta, Cosimo Damiano Cannito , and the Councilor for Culture, Oronzo Cilli , expressed great satisfaction: "We are particularly happy with the important step taken towards the realization of the Citadel project, in which our city has always believed. In addition to enabling the redevelopment of a significant area of industrial archaeology in the heart of Barletta, it will allow the city to host the most important international center dedicated to Concentration Camp Music, a place open to researchers, students, and ordinary people from all over the world, which will further enhance our already rich cultural heritage."

"This is a tremendous satisfaction ," stated Francesco Lotoro, the project's creator, " which can only be shared with all the institutional partners, friends, and supporters of the Foundation, who throughout these years, without giving up even a moment despite enormous difficulties, have deeply believed in the Cittadella della Musica Concentrationaria project. I therefore take this opportunity to thank them for their perseverance. This is a moment when we must now summon a different kind of energy, one that, from the Program Agreement—which is jointly signed by the Municipality, Province, Region, Superintendencies, and the Foundation—will lead us to complete everything necessary to reach the physical construction phase, which, we all hope, can be completed within a few years."

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