Una Tantum Workshop

I Musici — Brass Chamber & Living Heritage in Southern Italy

March 24 – 29, 2027

I Musici is a brass chamber music workshop set in the historic landscapes of Puglia and Basilicata, where music, architecture, food, and memory form a living continuum. Led by Maestro Thomas Riccobono*—American conductor, trombonist, and world-renowned brass pedagogue from the Interlochen Center for the Arts—and Tonio Creanza*, founder and director of Messors, art and cultural heritage conservator, and sixth-generation olive oil producer, this workshop invites musicians to blend musical rigor and cultural immersion.

Participants rehearse and perform Renaissance and Baroque brass repertoire in churches, monastery cloisters, and other historic spaces similar to those for which composers such as Gabrieli and Vivaldi wrote. Daily ensemble rehearsals, coaching, optional private lessons, and dedicated practice time are complemented by experiences that situate music within its cultural landscape: shared meals, guided walks through historic sites and olive groves, conversations on heritage and conservation, and hands-on foodways encounters with local artisans.

From rupestrian cave dwellings and shepherds’ shelters carved into limestone to luminous marble palazzos, the workshop unfolds across sites shaped by centuries of human presence. Participants explore the “limestone belly of the South”—a land that gives rise to a cuisine of earth and sun—and engage with local communities through cooking, cheese-making, olive oil tasting, and storytelling.

While daily rehearsals anchor the workshop, much of I Musici unfolds through encounters with place. Participants walk across Gravina’s dramatic ravine and archaeological hills, reading fragments of ancient pottery and tracing connections between Mediterranean trade, theatre, feasting, and music. A visit to Botromagno at sunset situates brass sound within the long arc of Magna Grecia’s artistic production.

At the rural Fornello site, participants learn traditional cheese-making techniques with local shepherdess, followed by a walk through Byzantine rupestrian churches carved into limestone. Olive oil tasting sessions introduce participants to terroir, cultivation, and the sensory discipline of professional evaluation—another form of attentive listening.

Shared cooking evenings turn the group into a small culinary ensemble, preparing traditional regional dishes shaped by the season and the surrounding landscape. Together we’ll cook what is growing, harvested, or brought in from nearby farms and gardens—reflecting everyday local cooking. These evenings unfold slowly, with hands at work, stories exchanged, and meals shared as part of the rhythms of local life.

Visits to Matera (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the Jatta Archaeological Museum deepen the dialogue among music, architecture, and visual culture. Throughout the week,  conversations with Maestro Riccobono explore musicianship, purpose, and artistic continuity.

The workshop explores music not as an isolated practice, but as something shaped by land, craft, and community.

*  Tom Riccobono

*  Tonio Creanza

Founder and director of Messors, Tonio Creanza is an art and cultural heritage conservator and educator whose work centers on the stewardship of material and living heritage in southern Italy. Trained in conservation ethics and practice, Creanza approaches heritage as something that requires active care and responsible transmission, rather than static preservation. Alongside his conservation practice, Creanza is deeply engaged in the stewardship of living heritage, particularly traditional olive cultivation and food production. Through long-standing relationships with local farmers, shepherds, and artisans, he supports the continuity of intergenerational practices rooted in seasonal labour, local knowledge, and community participation. Through Messors, Creanza develops and leads international educational programs that bring students, museum professionals, and cultural practitioners into direct contact with active heritage environments. His work emphasizes ethical hosting, cultural mediation, and the creation of sustained exchanges between local communities and international participants. Creanza’s practice operates at the intersection of cultural stewardship and cultural diplomacy, cultivating meaningful cross-cultural understanding through participation, responsibility, and long-term engagement with place. Born and raised in Altamura (Puglia, Italy), in 1989 he founded the cultural heritage conservation company Sinergie and has over 30 years of experience as an advocate and director of sustainable projects and multidisciplinary programs for the enhancement of Cultural Heritage and Historic Sites in rural contexts.

Una Tantum is a special edition workshop developed in collaboration with partner institutions, artists, researchers, or cultural organizations. Each edition responds to a specific place, theme, or shared expertise. Offered on a non-regular basis, the workshop focuses on exchange, experimentation, and site-specific learning.