Below are descriptions of projects to be presented at Winter Open Studios at the American Academy in Rome, taking place on Thursday, January 26, 2023, from 6:00 to 9:00pm.

Before Storyville: John Davis Plays the First Piano Professors of New Orleans

John Davis, a pianist and the 2023 Rome Prize Fellow in Design, will perform works from his signature repertoire of early American roots music. Expect to hear rarely played solo piano pieces from the keyboard continuum of nineteenth-century African American pianists/composers with which Davis is most associated as a performer. Included in the program will be forgotten works from nineteenth-century New Orleans, which foreshadowed jazz and rhythm and blues from the city in the twentieth century. Davis has been adding this music to his repertoire during his fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.

The Golden Trumpets of Radiance

For Winter Open Studios 2023, Antonella Genuardi and Leonardo Ruta, who have worked together as Genuardi/Ruta since 2014, present a site-specific work, The Golden Trumpets of Radiance. An installation related to curiosity, the pieces respond to our education and the people who have made the history of our places. We think of the stucco from Serpotta that adorns many Sicilian churches; we think of the people who have walked the marble floors of the churches throughout time. The Golden Trumpets of Radiance retraces this suggestion through materials that surprise us. We feel a certain curiosity toward what is happening in these works, a sort of surprise, an enigma. We depart from the evocation of an arch or a pillar by Pier Luigi Nervi, from the attention to that mineral architecture which encourages us to inquire about the relationship with our own existence. Just like the connection between them, the white and the blue are not only tied to a mineral experience, but an idea of verticality as well. The sensuality from the white in relation to the brightness of the gold, and the elegance of the blue. An attention to light through organic matter.

The artists will present three installations with the support of Ettore Alloggia, and a series of serigraphies produced in collaboration with Litografia Bulla.

Antonella Genuardi and Leonardo Ruta are the 2023 Fondazione Sicilia Affiliated Fellows in Visual Arts.

Drift/Loops

Visitors are invited to listen or participate in a short performance that translates the rhythms and patterns of a musical composition, Drift/Loops, into spoken language. By reading the supplied score out loud, the combinations, repetitions, and variations of two simple phrases drawn from folklore create a sense of time held in suspension.

This performance is drawn from a collaborative work in progress between Tung-Hui Hu and the composer Paula Matthusen (2015 Fellow), whose musical arrangements will also be featured, commissioned by the Metropolis Ensemble, in collaboration with the visual artist Olivia Valentine and Singularity.

Tung-Hui Hu is the 2023 Rome Prize Fellow in Literature.

Sans dire (Ricordi, 2022)—for guitar and electronics

Sans dire (without saying) is a wordless and confidential exchange among interlaced souls that takes place through the guitar, an instrument that, in its tone, reminds me of friendship. Words, in contrast, can only hint at the intimate connections that the guitar’s tones make possible. The electronics speak through sound analogies, revealing the affection of the playful gestures and displaying the complicity of the structure inside what remains unsaid.

Marco Momi is the 2023 Marcello Lotti Italian Fellow in Music.

The Sea of Rome: Fascination and Offense

Seventy kilometers of coast crossed along by foot collecting impressions and evidence from the landscape of the Roman sea to reinstate the complex image of an unstable and dynamic sistema, that of the area from the delta of the Tiber river. The whole of the customs and interests in contrast that inhabit it are about to confront a transformation that is in danger of being fast and deep. The Sea of Rome is a composition of images and testimonials, a contribution of interdisciplinary research aiming to a diffused awareness, a subtler sensibility, a more conscious accessibility to change toward a sustainable landscape.

Alessandro Mulazzani is the 2023 Enel Foundation Italian Fellow in Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture.

Widening the Lens: From Matera’s Deep Past to the Deep Future

In 2019, Matera, Italy’s oldest continuously inhabited city, leveraged its designation as a European Capital of Culture to promote and celebrate its unique cultural heritage. Through a variety of events and initiatives, Matera repositioned its cultural legacy to shape the perceptions of the city, create a sense of connection for residents, and attract temporary citizens. This short film, titled Widening the Lens and made in collaboration with the film program at American University in Rome, demonstrates how heritage can be used as a strategy not only to understand the past but also to help shape the present and future of a city.

Monica Rhodes is the 2023 Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize Fellow in historic preservation and conservation.

You Are My Secret

Ursa Major is a feature screenplay inspired by the life and work of the Jewish Romanian writer Mihail Sebastian (1907–1945). It is a love story set in Romania during the darkest time of fascism and war, when even the possibility of love becomes doubtful. Winter Open Studios showcases a scene from the screenplay You Are My Secret, directed by Ioana Uricaru and produced in collaboration with the American University of Rome.

Ioana Uricaru is the 2023 Philip Guston Rome Prize Fellow in visual arts.