Rome CIVIS Orchestra Academy 2025

Rehearse and perform within a symphonic orchestra of around 70 elements two masterpieces of the '800/'900: Respighi's "Pines of Rome" and Dvorak's "New World" Symphony

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CIVIS focus area
Society, culture, heritage
Open to
  • Bachelor's
  • Master's
  • Phd
Field of studies
  • Art, Design and Media
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
2 May - 15 July 2025

The project seeks to establish an academic framework in the BIP format, in order to continue the first two CIVIS orchestra academies, held in Marseille (April 2022) and in Madrid (May 2023). The initiative will be led by Sapienza with the participation of CIVIS students and teachers from other partners. The main objective of this proposal is to perform a concert in Rome during the CIVIS days of June 2025, featuring CIVIS students from as many partner universities as possible, in order to show how a CIVIS community actually exists and can be made real through music, after a week of work together.

Main topics addressed

  1. Playing music together and interact with students with other background and from different countries; the music will be performed with different conductors, from different universities.
  2. Rehearsing with the whole orchestra, in order to prepare the final concert to be held on June 12th 2025.
  3. The actual performance of the concert in Sapienza’s Main Hall with 4 conductors.

Learning outcomes

After having successfully completed the BIP, the students will ideally

  • Understand how to perform two important works of the symphonic repertoire (Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” and Dvorak’s “New World Symphony”)
  • Know how to integrate themselves in a collaborative, community based artistic project
  • Develop a positive attitude towards this academic and cultural experience
  • Be able to evaluate personal musical achievement
  • Apply aesthetic and practical concepts in the creation and recreation of music
  • Gain insight into the interrelationships among academic disciplines by studying how music reflects periods of history, music and art
  • Value the achievement of bringing together more than 60 students and perform a common musical text in public
  • Cultivate an international mentality through the collaboration with students and academics from other countries.
  • Create bonds both with academics and other students, which may offer networking opportunities and further personal careers.
Dates:  2 May - 15 July 2025 Total workload: 85 hours
Format: Blended ECTS: 3*
Location: Rome, Italy Language: English (B1)
Contact: daniele.gorla@uniroma1.it  

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

8 to 12 June 2025

The main aspect of the physical mobility will be the rehearsals for the concert and the final concert. There will be 4 full days of rehearsals, from Sunday 8th to Wednesday 11th, from 9:00 to 13:00 (3.5 hours plus 30 mins break) and from 14:00 to 18:00 (again, 3.5 hours plus 30 mins break). Thursday 12th will have regular rehearsals in the morning (again from 9:00 to 13:00), then the dress rehearsals from 3pm to 5pm and finally the concert from 19:00 to 20:00.

Virtual part

2 May to 15 July 2025

The virtual component of the program will consist of six sessions, to be developed through Google Meet, which would be easily available. This will also be a good format to introduce musical scholarship together with musical performance issues in the BIP. In every session there would be additional material (texts, recordings...), and a final assessment activity.

Requirements

This course is open to Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD students at CIVIS member universities. Music proficiency pre-requisites will certainly apply in this BIP, since the aim of the physical mobility part is to rehearse and perform two important works of the symphonic European tradition. While the these works can be rated with a medium level of difficulty, there must be a pre-selection of participating students by the conductors of the different orchestras or music ensembles, in order to ensure that participation in this BIP is not open to those students with limited musical proficiency. 

Participants should have a good level of written and spoken English (B1 level).

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

Students from CIVIS’ strategic partner universities in Africa cannot apply for participation in this course.

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by by 31 October 2024 and including a CV and a motivation letter, 

The required CV must focus on the musical background of the applicant, by specifying the musical level (including possible academic degrees obtained or expected in a near future), the musical experiences (years of performance in orchestra, possible chamber music groups, ...) and any other element that allows the evaluation of the musical skill (possible awards in national/international music competitions, soloist performances, ...).

Apply now

Assessment

A physical part and a virtual one will be combined right from the beginning:

  • Personal study. There will be a first virtual session with the conductors, in order to guide students and explain the decisions that will determine the actual performance of the work.
  • During the first weeks each student will prepare his or her part, subject to a personal follow-up in each university.
  • Finally, students will have a virtual meeting to show their work and acquire important feedback. In this way, the work in Rome will not begin from scratch.

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

GDPR Consent

The CIVIS alliance and its member universities will treat the information you provide with respect. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information on our privacy practices. By applying to this course you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

  • Jose Maria Alvarez Muñoz (Univ. Autonoma de Madrid),
  • Sébastien Boin (Aix-Marseille Université),
  • Francesco Vizioli (Sapienza Univ.),
  • Zoe Zeniodi (National Kapodistrian University of Athens)