ArteScienza Festival

A festival where music meets science

Born from the work of the CRM - Centro Ricerche Musicali, an association founded in Rome in 1988 by composers Laura Bianchini and Michelangelo Lupone, ArteScienza is one of Italy's longest-running events dedicated to electroacoustic music and arts born from the encounter with technology. Presented as an international biennial of art, science, and contemporary culture, the festival takes place in the Municipality of Rome, in the Lazio region, with events spread between late spring and autumn.

The Olofoni and sound research

The hallmark of ArteScienza is the use of Olofoni, sound projectors patented by the CRM capable of diffusing sound directionally and in great detail up to a hundred meters away, with minimal acoustic energy loss. Thanks to these devices, the gardens and courtyards of the host venues become true open-air concert halls, where listeners can move through the space and discover sound from ever-changing perspectives. The Roman center's research also covers acoustics, psychoacoustics, auralization systems, and adaptive musical artworks—sound sculptures that react to the presence of the audience.

The Roman venues

The heart of the festival is historically the Goethe-Institut Rom on Via Savoia, linked to the CRM by a nearly thirty-year collaboration: its gardens and conference hall host concert-installations, auteur video-music, and artist talks. Over the years, the event has also involved Villa Torlonia, the MUSA (Museum of Musical Instruments of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia), Spazio Rossellini, the Auditorium Parco della Musica, and various local music schools and conservatories, selecting culturally significant locations that engage in a dialogue with the works presented.

A multidisciplinary program

Each edition revolves around a theme that guides new productions and installations. The program alternates between:

• contemporary and electroacoustic music concerts, often featuring live electronics and world premieres;
• acousmatic concerts and listening marathons with multi-channel diffusion systems;
• site-specific sound and visual installations, many created by Michelangelo Lupone and Licia Galizia;
• contemporary dance, theater, and poetic improvisation, with choreographers invited to engage with electronic scores;
• auteur video-music and documentaries;
• seminars, masterclasses, and workshops, also available via streaming, reserved for students of universities, conservatories, and music schools.

Training and young composers

ArteScienza is not just a series of shows; a significant part of the project is dedicated to training. Selected young composers create concert-installations specifically designed for the Olofoni, while masterclasses address highly relevant topics such as the use of artificial intelligence in musical composition, sound spatialization, and interactive technologies applied to the performing arts. Meetings with philosophers, historians, and researchers complete the picture, in line with the festival's interdisciplinary vocation.

A network beyond Rome

Thanks to collaborations with festivals, foreign cultural institutes, and conservatories, the festival has recently extended some events beyond the capital, involving cities such as Piacenza, Trieste, Rieti, and Latina. The project is supported by the Lazio Region as part of its live performance initiatives, which has once again funded the CRM's ARTESCIENZA project for 2026.

Who it is for

The audience of ArteScienza consists of contemporary music enthusiasts, students, artists, and the simply curious: the open-air concert format in gardens, with affordable tickets and numerous reduced-entry events, makes a repertoire often considered niche accessible to all. It is a precious opportunity to hear electroacoustic works in Rome that rarely find space in traditional concert seasons.