Magic numbers are a key feature in finite Fermion systems since they are strongly related to the underlying mean field. The evolution of the shells far from stability can be linked to the shape and symmetry of the nuclear mean field and allows to probe the density dependence of the effective interaction. Changes of the nuclear density and size in nuclei with increasing N/Z ratios are expected to lead to different nuclear symmetries and excitations. Recently it has also been shown that the tensor force play an important role in breaking and creating magic numbers being a key element of the shell evolution along the nuclear chart.
The study of nuclear structure far from stability, mainly linked to the availability of radioactive nuclear beams, can be complementary addressed by means of high intensity beams of stable ions. Deep-inelastic and multi-nucleon transfer reactions are a powerful tool to populate yrast and non yrast states in neutron-rich nuclei. Particularly successful is here the combination of large acceptance spectrometers with highly segmented -detector arrays. Recent results from the CLARA and AGATA -ray detector arrays coupled with the PRISMA spectrometer at the Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL) will be presented.