La Piazza, a new Italian Music and Food Festival, will premiere April 10–12, 2026, in the Faulkner Gallery and Towbes Plaza at the Santa Barbara Public Library. The free, three-day celebration will highlight Italy’s rich musical heritage, its vibrant culinary traditions, and the spirit of community that connects us all.
The festival opens at 4:00 pm on the afternoon of Friday, April 10, at the Faulkner Gallery, with a concert titled “Amore Italiano: Rome, Cinema, and the Music of the Heart,” featuring the combined talents of Jacopo Giacopuzzi and Alvise Pascucci on piano, Camille Miller on violin, and Tommaso Benciolini on flute.
The food festival begins Saturday, April 11 at noon and continues at noon, April 12, at Towbes Plaza. Visitors will enjoy bread and olive oil tastings, a fresh pasta stand with hands-on workshops for kids, booths offering an array of authentic Italian products, cooking demonstrations, tarantella dance lessons, seminars on the food, wine, and music of Italy presented by the UCSB Italian Culture Department, and other engaging activities celebrating Italy’s contributions to the American Riviera.
Saturday and Sunday afternoons will end with a classical music concert in the Faulkner Gallery. Saturday’s concert is titled “Recomposed: Vivaldi, Verdi, and the Art of Reinvention,” again displaying the talents of Giacopuzzi, Pascucci, Miller, and Benciolini, while Sunday’s concert is “Dolce Swing,” featuring Benciolini on flute, Antonio Artese on piano, and the Antonio Artese Trio, consisting of Artese, Luca Alemanno, and Mark Ferber.
The festival program and attractions will be included in a brochure and map directing visitors to festival partners, including Arnoldi’s, Aperitivo & Manifattura, Ca’ Daria, Olio, Bettina, Via Maestra, and more.
La Piazza is being produced by La Piazza, Inc., an IRS-recognized nonprofit, under the direction of Jacopo Giacopuzzi, president of the Italian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Santa Barbara and the producer of the annual Tramonto Festival in Encinitas, California.
For more information, or to be included as a partner in what is likely to become another signature Santa Barbara festival, visit https://jacopogiacopuzzi.com/la-piazza-inc/, or email LaPiazzaSB@gmail.com.
Dining and Cooking