The Festival della Valle d’Itria presented its 2026 “Lorenzo and Pasquale D’Arcangelo” Journalism Award to music critic Alessandro Cammarano on July 29, 202 at the Park Hotel San Michele in Martina Franca.

The award was presented by Michele Punzi, president of the Paolo Grassi Foundation, and Silvia Colasanti, artistic director of the Festival. Presented annually since 1995, the prize recognizes the critic who best covered the previous edition of the Festival and is named for Martina Franca journalists Lorenzo D’Arcangelo, who played a key role in the Festival’s growth, and Pasquale D’Arcangelo, its longtime press officer. Cammarano, founder of the online publication Le Salon Musical and a contributor to the Gazzettino, has covered the Festival since 2017.

That evening, the Festival presented the second performance of its diptych pairing Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” with Casella’s “The Tale of Orpheus” at the Palazzo Ducale.

The production was directed and choreographed by Jean Renshaw, with Nicolò Umberto Foron conducting the Orchestra and Chorus of the Petruzzelli Theatre of Bari in his first opera conducted in Italy. The Eko Dance Project provided choreography. Chiara Mogini, Matteo Falcier, and Roberto Lorenzi led both operas, joined in Casella’s work by Cecilia Taliani Grasso, Willingerd Giménez, and Flavia Fioretti of the Rodolfo Celletti Belcanto Academy.