There are nineteen concerts that interpret the music of the spirit. There are ten churches and the Palazzo Reale (the royal palace) that serve as backdrops for projections. They become an art gallery on the city streets. Churches are places for rites and communion, but they are also ideal places for different cultures to meet and reflect off each other and for differences to equalize. There are nineteen evenings of concerts in celebration of varieties of musical heritages of differing times and places. These concerts bear witness to the peoples that set free their strengths and imaginations, which are multiplied by coming in contact with each other. There are five churches that are like precious jewel boxes that guard extraordinary frescos, paintings, and statues. This is a heritage that rests in the shadows and is often forgotten or unknown. In the festivities of Lucicanti, the light-songs, a streak of light comes out of the dark to illuminate a saint’s face, an arm, a detail of a fresco, a piece of a statue, a piece of stucco, or a bit of architecture. The light clears the way for the music. The tale of the musical notes mixes in with the illuminated dialogue of the lighted fragments. The magic becomes complete. There are different styles and epochs, complementary messages that dialogue with each other. They all visually and musically seem to bring forth a new message, which is left entirely to be deciphered. During the concert a gigantic retable takes shape. It is an entirely new story told in images of the greatness of peoples and cultures. The city is the stage. Pieces and details of twelfth through eighteenth century masterpieces of religious art seem to wink at the night. They go out into the streets and light up the nights. They mix wisely with the full and empty facets of the different types of architecture, the facades of the seven most important churches in the city’s historical centre. There is a guest of honour among the churches. It is the royal palace, which serves as backdrop for entire masterpieces of Italian art masters.
Fragments of art encounter fragments of architecture and for one night they play and mix the shapes of unmoving buildings and hence transform them. They make up night-time dances of shapes and colours, a never-before-seen encounter of great art and great architecture. And, in the secret of the night, the city is transformed into a gigantic open-art museum.