Villa Lontana presents Organum Multiplum, a festival of contemporary music for organ conceived as a sonic and spiritual journey across the city of Rome. Featuring Ellen Arkbro, Sarah Davachi, Maxime Denuc, Jonathan Fitoussi, Hampus Lindwall, Hanne Lippard and Kali Malone, the program brings together composers and artists whose work intertwines the spiritual dimension of listening with the timbral and spatial experimentation of sound.

The festival proposes a musical itinerary through four historic churches in Rome, offering moments of collective listening and contemplation. The concerts will take place at the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, la Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio, la Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi e la Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Santissimo Sacramento e dei Santi Martiri Canadesi.

Considered the “oldest of synthesizers,” the pipe organ becomes a bridge between the spiritual and the experimental. The title pays homage to Alfredo Leonardi’s 1967 film Organum Multiplum and reflects the festival’s intent to explore the dialogue between historical instruments and contemporary sound practices. On the occasion of the Jubilee Year 2025, Organum Multiplum unfolds as a sonic pilgrimage across multiple sites in the historic center of Rome. Each concert is conceived as a unique experience, in dialogue with the acoustics and architecture of the hosting churches.

The festival is curated by Vittoria Bonifati and promoted by Villa Lontana in partnership with Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma and under the Patronage of Roma Capitale. The initiative is made possible with the support of Fondazione Roma and additional support from Fondazione Santarelli. Supported by French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, American Academy in Rome, Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette. With the collaboration of Accademia Tedesca di Roma Villa Massimo and Circolo Scandinavo. Technical sponsor: Fabbrica d’Organi Tamburini. Media partners: ZERO, NERO, Radio Raheem

CHAPTER I

Ellen Arkbro
November 7, Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

The first chapter of the series opened on November 7 at Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, designed by Michelangelo Buonarroti within the ancient Baths of Diocletian. In the Chapel of San Bruno stands the monumental organ built by Barthélemy Formentelli in 1992—the largest in Italy constructed according to the French Baroque organ-building tradition— which hosted the opening concert by Ellen Arkbro. the opening concert by Ellen Arkbro. Composer, sound artist, and musician, Arkbro presents her first concert in Rome: a series of organ variations drawn from her album Nightclouds (Blank Forms, 2025), recorded in various churches across Central Europe between 2023 and 2024. In her compositions, the exploration of natural harmonies and subtle tonal micro-variations generates a contemplative and suspended listening experience, capable of channeling a spiritual pathos through a rigorously measured sonic architecture.

Ellen Arkbro, Hampus Lindwall, Hanne Lippard
November 9, Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio

On November 9 the festival continued at the Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio, the oldest circular-plan church in Rome. Here, Ellen Arkbro, Hampus Lindwall, and Hanne Lippard presented for the first time in Italy How do I know if my cat likes me? (Blank Forms, 2025), a concert for two organs and voice, transforming the alienation of contemporary life into a sonic and spiritual reflection on distance, repetition and emptiness. The performance unfolds as an existential meditation on the empty spaces of our automated everyday life, structured through a skillful use of sonic and textual repetitions that liberate sound from meaning, returning it as pure perceptual experience. The accompaniment on two organs by Arkbro and Lindwall creates a tonal landscape that is at once intuitive and enigmatic, while Lippard’s recitation envelops the listener in a circular movement in which language gradually slips from pure function to pure aesthetics, leading back to a spiritual dimension of being.

Hampus Lindwall
November 11, Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi

The first chapter concluded on November 11 at Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi, renowned for Caravaggio’s cycle of paintings dedicated to Saint Matthew and for its magnificent French Romantic organ built by Joseph Merklin in 1881. Positioned on the gallery above the entrance portal, it is considered the first modern organ ever built in Rome. Organist and composer Hampus Lindwall, for whom this was his second performance on this historic instrument—having previously played works by Jeanne Demessieux—presented here, for the first time in Rome, an improvised version of one of his own compositions. His practice—defined as a form of “post-internet organ music”—is informed by algorithmic processes and a constant tension between liturgical memory and sonic innovation. In his approach, Lindwall seems to imitate computerized music in the very way he plays the organ, performing rapid sequences and responding to the architecture of the church, where the notes merge with their own resonances. The improvisation employs computer processes to cut into his microtonal drones, creating popping rhythms that he pipes back into the space.

CHAPTER II

Kali Malone
November 18, Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri

The second chapter of the series opened on November 18 with Kali Malone’s first concert in Rome, held at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. The artist, composer, and organist presents an evolving program that intertwines new compositions and pieces drawn from her albums All Life Long (Ideologic Organ, 2024) and The Sacrificial Code (Ideal Recordings, 2019). In her practice, experimental reinterpretations of ancient polyphonic methods and historical tuning systems become portals to new ways of perceiving harmony, structure, and introspection, shaping a space for contemplative and meditative listening. The concert includes the participation of Stephen O'Malley—guitarist, producer, composer, and visual artist—in several pieces for four-hand organ.

Maxime Denuc
November 21, Chiesa of San Luigi dei Francesi

On November 21, the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi hosts Maxime Denuc, who presents an organ concert where tradition and contemporary experimentation intertwine. This marks his first organ concert in Italy. Combining classical harmonies with new timbral explorations, the composer investigates the possibility of transforming the organ into a powerful natural synthesizer by using two robots that he places on the instrument’s keyboards. His practice merges the expressive richness and emotional power of the church organ with a sonic sensibility suspended between trance, techno, and the geometries of Baroque polyphony. This synthesis is poetically expressed in his album Nachthorn (Vlek, 2022), a musical project composed for the organ of St. Antonius Church in Düsseldorf, whose title refers to one of the 78 stops of the church’s main instrument. 

Jonathan Fitoussi
November 28, Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Santissimo Sacramento e dei Santi Martiri Canadesi

The series concluded on November 28 with a concert by Jonathan Fitoussi at the Church of Nostra Signora del Santissimo Sacramento e dei Santi Martiri Canadesi, one of the most significant examples of modern sacred architecture in Rome, which houses a monumental organ built in 1975 by Fratelli Ruffatti. Marking his first performance in Rome, Fitoussi presents an improvisation for organ and electronic instruments, within a meditative aesthetic that unites tradition and experimentation. Using synthesizers, a looper, and sound effects, the artist explores the fusion between electronic and acoustic sound, focusing on timbral matter and the immersive dimension of listening. His research into minimalist and contemporary musical forms invites a contemplative mode of listening, restoring to the organ its role as a visionary and universal instrument. This same church was also chosen by Federico Fellini, who filmed here in 1960 the well-known scene in La Dolce Vita in which Steiner (played by Alain Cuny) plays the organ for Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni).

Villa Lontana presents Organum Multiplum, a festival of contemporary music for organ conceived as a sonic and spiritual journey across the city of Rome. Featuring Ellen Arkbro, Sarah Davachi, Maxime Denuc, Jonathan Fitoussi, Hampus Lindwall, Hanne Lippard, and Kali Malone, the program brings together composers and artists whose work intertwines the spiritual dimension of listening with the timbral and spatial experimentation of sound.
 The festival proposes a musical itinerary through four historic churches in Rome, offering moments of collective listening and contemplation. The concerts will take place at the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, la Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio, la Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi e la Chiesa di Nostra Signora del Santissimo Sacramento e dei Santi Martiri Canadesi.

Considered the “oldest of synthesizers,” the pipe organ becomes a bridge between the spiritual and the experimental. The title pays homage to Alfredo Leonardi’s 1967 film Organum Multiplum and reflects the festival’s intent to explore the dialogue between historical instruments and contemporary sound practices. On the occasion of the Jubilee Year 2025, Organum Multiplum unfolds as a sonic pilgrimage across multiple sites in the historic center of Rome. Each concert is conceived as a unique experience, in dialogue with the acoustics and architecture of the hosting churches.

The festival is curated by Vittoria Bonifati and promoted by Villa Lontana in partnership with Soprintendenza Speciale Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Roma and under the Patronage of Roma Capitale. The initiative is made possible with the support of Fondazione Roma and additional support from Fondazione Santarelli. Supported by French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, American Academy in Rome, Pieux Établissements de la France à Rome et à Lorette. With the collaboration of Accademia Tedesca di Roma Villa Massimo and Circolo Scandinavo. Technical sponsor: Fabbrica d’Organi Tamburini. Media partners: ZERO, NERO, Radio Raheem.

All concerts are free to attend upon reservation, until capacity is reached.
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