The Occit’amo festival in 3,000 characters

Occit’amo returns in 2026 with a widespread calendar across Alpine valleys, villages, mountain huts, and squares of the Terre del Monviso, confirming its status as one of the leading festivals dedicated to Occitan culture and the fusion of music, territories, and communities. An itinerant cultural project, it traverses the Po Bronda, Varaita, Maira, Grana, Stura, and Infernotto valleys, as well as the Saluzzo plains, weaving together concerts, excursions, performances, training, and the promotion of Alpine heritage.

The 2026 edition—following a highly successful and well-attended preview in May with Prima D’Oc in Demonte—will kick off from Monte Roccerè, between the Maira and Varaita valleys, with the Feast of San Joan (or Saint John). This symbolic event on the summer solstice inaugurates the festival’s summer journey through tradition, conviviality, and folk music. From here, Occit’amo will unfold across the entire arc of the Occitan valleys with events that combine culture, landscape, and participation.

Among the most anticipated events will be the return of the Catalan Cobla, this time featuring a new artistic collaboration with Sergio Berardo and musicians from the Italian side of the Occitan valleys. Following last year’s success, the project will expand further with two scheduled concerts in Saluzzo and Cuneo. The sounds of Catalan tradition will meet the instruments and repertoires of the Lands of Oc in a production that confirms the festival’s international vocation.

A particularly evocative event will take place at the Alpetto Refuge, in collaboration with the Monviso Park, organized to mark the 160th anniversary of the first Italian Alpine refuge. This event is dedicated to Alpine memory and culture, where bagpipes and traditional instruments will accompany the audience in one of the symbolic locations of Italian mountaineering history.

Among the most significant new features of the 2026 edition will be the Giro di Viso, a project that brings music along a multi-day trek around Monviso. Concerts, musical sunrises, and social gatherings will accompany the journey through refuges and trails, strengthening the link between artistic experience, the mountains, and slow tourism. The program will also include prison outreach, mountain therapy, and all the essential opportunities for engagement with the inhabitants of the Terre del Monviso.

Alongside the musical and territorial dimensions, Occit’amo will continue to host prominent figures from the Italian cultural scene. Saluzzo will welcome the Patagarri with their gypsy jazz characterized by irony and freedom, and the great sports storyteller Federico Buffa with “Olympics between War and Peace,” a narrative weaving together sport, history, and civil memory in collaboration with Borgate dal Vivo. Other guests include Paolo Ruffini, Francesco Costa, and Roberta Bruzzone, appearing as part of the Attraverso Festival at the Quartiere di Saluzzo.

But Occit’amo is much more: it is the work of the Grande Orchestra Occitana, involving dozens of young musicians; it is the rediscovery of traditional dances led by Daniela Mandrile; it is the community theater of “Pedalando tra le storie” (Pedaling through stories), which will traverse villages and valleys collecting tales and memories; and it is international musical training that will bring students and artists from other European Occitan areas to the Terre del Monviso.

Occit’amo confirms itself as a shared cultural experience capable of uniting music, landscape, sustainability, participation, accessibility, and regional promotion, while keeping the communities of the Terre del Monviso and their cultural heritage at its heart.