From birdsong to club sounds: the VALUE Plus Cultural Festival in Ravenna
01/07/2026
Ravenna (Italy), June 2026
In June 2026, the VALUE Plus Cultural Festival came to the Ravenna area with two very different events. One invited the public to discover the nature of the Po Delta, the other turned the city’s art museum into a stage for experimental music. Both showed how cultural heritage, landscape and contemporary creativity can attract new audiences to the area.
Happy Birdays: birdwatching and nature photography in Marina Romea (5–7 June)
For three days, Marina Romea became the meeting point for birdwatchers and nature photographers. Happy Birdays was organised by the Po Delta Park Emilia-Romagna with Confcommercio Ravenna, Federalberghi Ravenna and CAT, under the patronage of the Municipality of Ravenna and as part of Ravenna Capitale del Mare 2026.
The programme mixed talks, workshops and field trips:
- guided excursions across the Delta, from Lido di Volano to Lido di Classe: boat trips in the Piallassa Baiona, the herons of Punte Alberete, the Comacchio saltworks, the Pineta di Classe, the Bosco della Mesola and the Ortazzo and Ortazzino oasis, led by expert naturalist guides and ornithologists;
- night walks to listen to owls and other nocturnal birds of prey with owl expert Marco Mastrorilli, who also presented the national preview of his book on the nightjar;
- workshops and talks on bioacoustics, monitor calibration, camera trapping and photography for habitat conservation, with photographer Marco Gaiotti;
- the chance to test professional equipment in the field, with the support of leading photography and optics brands;
- a theatre workshop for children about nocturnal birds of prey.
The photography exhibition “Vita nel bosco” (Life in the Woods) also opened during the festival. Twelve nature photographers displayed their work along the cycle path of Viale Italia in Marina Romea until 12 September 2026.
Portuaria: experimental music at MAR (19 June)
On the evening of 19 June, the MAR – Ravenna Art Museum hosted the return of Portuaria, presented by Club Adriatico. The programme was born during the pandemic as a response to the limits imposed on live music and cultural spaces. It has since grown into a platform for live performance and club experimentation.
This edition, with free entry, featured:
- HHY & The Kampala Unit, a project by Jonathan Uliel Saldanha and trumpeter Florence Nandawula, connected to the Ugandan Nyege Nyege scene, mixing dub, techno, funk, percussion and brass;
- Dutch multi-instrumentalist and producer Nicolini, moving between electronic music, dub, industrial dancehall and post-punk;
- Pit, resident DJ and artistic director of Club Adriatico, who closed the night.
Bringing contemporary music into the museum opened its spaces to a younger audience and showed a new way of living the city’s cultural venues after dark.