Whatever else might be said about these past ten days, the quality of the event has seldom been in question. The sheer joy and enthusiasm of those enormous crowds in Piazza Angelio told the story. Alessandro Rizzardi’s far-flung network produced night after night of wonderful music – quite a bit of it from the likes of our own stunningly talented core group of performers. How lucky we are to have them among us, linked by a guy whose superb organizational skills match his knowledge of jazz, rock, soul, R&B and the people who can deliver it. To Alessandro (and his incredibly hard-working staff, Cinzia), Barga owes an enormous debt of gratitude.

Sadly, it is impossible to avoid comparison with the first stumbling days of the Opera Barga Festival. The least of its problems is that the schedules have all been inaccurate, and every program substantially changed at the last minute without explanation. Infinitely worse, a succession of brilliant musicians – many of world class – have played before unimaginably tiny audiences, often just a few dozen listeners, in the absence of anything that approaches adequate publicity. This has become a pitiful Barga tradition: accomplished artists traveling great distances to perform, backed by virtually no promotion and struggling in an informational void. There’s no excuse.