Music, community and glocal impact: the evolution of AVANT Festival
What happens when a festival moves beyond its artistic dimension and becomes a space where people, places, organisations and communities can meet, learn and build new relationships? This question lies at the heart of the first preparatory impact assessment of AVANT Festival, a project promoted by Sud Sonico APS in Lecce, Southern Italy. Centred on the 2025 edition and complemented by data and materials collected between 2023 and 2025, the assessment explores how an independent cultural platform can activate people, places and international networks, turning music into a vehicle for participation, collective responsibility and place-based development.
The report, developed with the support of RUDI - Risorse Umane Dirette e Indirette, does more than reconstruct the activities delivered. It distinguishes between results that can already be documented, early changes that can be observed, and longer-term impacts that will require more consistent monitoring. What emerges is the profile of an evolving cultural, civic and relational infrastructure, rooted in its local context, connected to European networks and able to bring together artistic experimentation, youth engagement, training, sustainability and collective responsibility.
The case also raises a broader question for foundations, donors and international partners: does supporting music mean financing only what is visible on stage, or does it also mean investing in the relationships, skills and organisational capacities that allow cultural value to grow and endure over time?
Culture as civic infrastructure
Culture and music are still frequently viewed as sectors to be supported, programmes to be delivered or tools for increasing the attractiveness of a place. Yet this perspective risks capturing only their most visible dimension. A cultural project can create spaces for encounter, foster a sense of belonging, activate skills, generate new narratives about a territory and make complex issues accessible through shared artistic languages. In this sense, it can function as a civic infrastructure, built not only through venues and equipment but also through relationships, knowledge, opportunities for participation and spaces for dialogue.
AVANT Festival can be understood from this perspective. Established in 2019 as a project dedicated to contemporary and experimental music, AVANT has gradually expanded its scope. Alongside its music programme, it has developed training activities, artistic residencies, explorations of the local area, initiatives connecting art and the environment, solidarity actions and collaborations with Italian and European organisations.
This evolution has taken the project beyond the boundaries of a conventional event. AVANT does not simply produce performances; it activates cultural processes involving people, places, professional networks and communities. The assessment describes it as a "slow and intimate" experience, capable of connecting contemporary artistic languages, learning opportunities and the exploration of local area, Baroque heritage, and coastal areas.
Making cultural value visible
Many cultural organisations have an intuitive understanding of the value generated by their work. They recognise it in the relationships that emerge, in the growth of the people involved, in audience responses and in the trust developed with partners and local communities. Turning that perception into an organised, transparent and progressively verifiable account, however, requires a different level of work.
AVANT's assessment was developed precisely in response to this need. The report does not claim that the festival has already produced fully consolidated structural transformations. Instead, it organises the available information, distinguishes what can be documented from what appears plausible, and identifies the areas that will need to be observed more consistently in future editions. The main focus is the 2025 edition, while data from previous years are used to understand the project's trajectory between 2023 and 2025.
The document differentiates between directly documentable results, technically defined as outputs, early observable changes, or outcomes, and medium- to long-term impacts that still need to be verified and consolidated. This methodological caution does not weaken the narrative; it makes it more credible. Measuring impact does not mean proving that every change is entirely caused by a single project. It means understanding which transformations the project contributes to, through which results and alongside which other actors.
People, places and relationships
The assessment looks at AVANT through three interconnected dimensions: people, territory and the cultural ecosystem.
The festival engages artists, young professionals, collaborators, volunteers and participants through music programming, training, residencies and learning by doing. In 2025, the project involved 15 collaborators, 11 of whom were under 35, and nine young professionals took part in MEGA - Music Efforts for Green Activism. AVANT also hosted the Italian edition of Street Ballads, a sound and literature project initiated by the Zurich-based organisation soundscapes.live, bringing together Swiss and Italian writers and artists to develop original texts and compositions.
The testimonies collected portray an experience capable of fostering belonging, trust and mutual recognition:
"People can feel at home, or in any case part of a large family." - Eleonora Tondo, AVANT Festival volunteer
The available information therefore supports the conclusion that AVANT contributes to learning opportunities, meaningful engagement and relational growth. Understanding its longer-term effects on professional pathways and the continuity of collaborations will require further follow-up several months after the activities have taken place.
Salento is not used merely as a scenic backdrop. Cultural venues, rural spaces, coastal landscapes, nature trails and unconventional settings become an integral part of the experience. Concerts, outdoor activities and cultural hikes encourage slower and more conscious ways of moving through and interpreting the territory.
The assessment identifies early indications that the festival can influence how places are perceived and connect culture, landscape and heritage. Further work is still needed to understand audience origins, the continued use of activated spaces and any indirect economic effects. Here too, the value of the process lies not in claiming more than the data allow, but in having clearly identified what should be observed and how the quality of future evidence can be improved.
Between 2023 and 2025, AVANT shows a progressive increase in participation and in the relationships it has activated. Annual attendance rose from 250 to 350 and then to 700. The number of partners increased from 6 to 8 and then to 16, while the number of funders grew from 3 to 4 and eventually to 7. The programme expanded from 2 events in 2023 to 5 in 2025.
These are not the figures of a large-scale festival, nor is mass growth the project's ambition. Its relevance lies in the quality of its curatorial approach, the continuity of its development and its ability to connect artistic production, learning, places and international networks. This distinctive curatorial quality is also recognised by the artists involved:
"It was an unforgettable experience, and I truly loved the spirit and boldness of the festival's programming." - Delphine Dora, international composer and organist
A civic role: rooted locally, connected internationally
AVANT's civic function is not separate from its artistic proposal. It runs through the programme, the relationships it creates and the experiences it offers. In the report, peace, rights, social justice and collective responsibility are treated as cross-cutting elements across all three dimensions of the assessment. Culture is therefore understood as a space in which people can listen, engage with public issues, develop awareness and recognise themselves as part of a wider community.
Describing the festival as a democratic infrastructure does not mean assigning it responsibilities that belong to representative institutions. It means recognising that democratic life also depends on accessible places where people can practice listening, exchange, freedom of expression and cultural participation. AVANT explores this role through sound and artistic languages, curatorial themes connected to memory, war, rights and resistance, and actions that translate reflection into concrete responsibility.
During the 2025 edition, an awareness and fundraising campaign embedded within the programme supported The Sameer Project, contributing to the donation of 2,700 litres of water to children and families living in areas affected by armed conflict. The social and environmental dimension was therefore not added at the end as a communication device; it formed part of the festival's content and working method.
One of the most distinctive features of AVANT's trajectory is the combination of strong local roots and international openness. The project was created and operates in Lecce and around, but it grows through a network of artists, cultural institutions, foundations and European partners. These relationships are not simply a source of external visibility. They enable practices, expertise, artistic opportunities and resources to circulate between different territories.
The relationships developed with Swiss institutions and partners, including Pro Helvetia, Greenfield Foundation, soundscapes.live and Hallow Ground, have also made a significant contribution to the festival's development. Through different roles and forms of support, these collaborations have strengthened the project's international dimension, artistic circulation, relationship-building and overall sustainability. They also demonstrate how an independent cultural initiative in Southern Italy can build transnational alliances without losing its local identity.
It is precisely this connection between the local and the international that makes the model particularly relevant. Networks and resources coming from outside are not simply transferred into the territory; they are integrated into experiences, skills and projects that acquire a specific meaning within the local context.
The recognition expressed by one of the foundations supporting the festival also shows that funding can relate not only to a single programme, but to the cultural and collective quality of the wider process:
"The Foundation is honoured to have supported the festival and your collective work. We congratulate you on the quality of the cultural programme you bring to Lecce, and on the enthusiasm with which you carry it forward." - Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati
Supporting the conditions that create shared value
The AVANT Festival case study suggests that support for culture cannot be limited to financing the moments that are most visible to audiences. Behind a festival capable of generating cultural and civic value lie less visible but essential activities: developing and maintaining partnerships, coordinating artists and organisations, training collaborators, collecting and organising data, documenting experiences, monitoring results and sustaining relationships over time.
These activities make the final quality of the project possible and create the conditions for its effects to continue beyond the end of the event. AVANT's assessment shows that following professional pathways, the durability of networks and the continuity of place-based cultural practices requires appropriate tools, expertise and clearly defined organisational responsibilities.
For foundations and donors, this raises an important issue. Asking organisations to produce evidence without supporting their capacity to collect, interpret and use data risks creating disproportionate demands and reporting that is of limited practical value. Supporting monitoring, learning and organisational development can instead improve both the quality of projects and the quality of philanthropic decision-making, creating the conditions for experiences and results to become shared knowledge.
This does not mean reducing the accountability of organisations towards funders, communities and beneficiaries. It means building evaluation systems that are proportionate, useful and embedded in the life of the project.
The report therefore proposes reading AVANT as a cultural, place-based and relational infrastructure in development. The festival has already established a recognisable identity and a concrete capacity to connect people, places and organisations, while retaining significant room for growth in which partners, institutions and philanthropic actors can play a transformative role.
The publication of the assessment provides a foundation for improving data collection, informing future editions and partnerships, and making the festival's contribution to the cultural and civic life of the territory more visible. Rather than closing a process, it clarifies what has already been generated, what still needs to be observed and where new alliances can support the project's future development and continuity.