Events

PRESS RELEASE SOUND PAINTING TIME Fondazione Prometeo celebrates the centenary of Morton Feldman with a journey through music, painting and perception The year 2026 marks the centenary of the birth of Morton Feldman (1926–1987), one of the most original and influential figures in twentieth-century music. To mark this occasion, Fondazione Prometeo presents Sound Painting Time, an interdisciplinary project bringing to Parma, from September to December, a rich programme of four lectures and four concerts dedicated to the thought and work of the American composer. Rather than a commemorative tribute, Sound Painting Time offers a new perspective on Feldman's creative universe, revealing how his music emerged from a dialogue with some of the most innovative artistic experiences of the second half of the twentieth century. For Feldman, sound is not merely compositional material but a space to inhabit; time is not simply a measure but a perceptual dimension; listening is not a passive act but an experience of transformation. The project begins by exploring Feldman's relationship with the leading figures of American Abstract Expressionism—Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston—artists with whom he shared a profound intellectual and personal affinity. From this encounter emerged a new conception of the artwork: the canvas ceased to be a surface of representation and became instead a field of presence. Likewise, in Feldman's music, sound becomes a living surface shaped by minute variations, suspensions and delicate transformations. A second strand of the programme is devoted to Feldman's relationship with John Cage, whose influence proved decisive in the composer's artistic development. Through a comparison between two deeply kindred yet fundamentally different personalities, the lectures will show how their creative dialogue gave rise to one of the most radical redefinitions of sound, silence and listening in contemporary music. Particular emphasis is placed on the lecture devoted to the Rothko Chapel in Houston, offering a new interpretation of the relationship between Feldman and Mark Rothko through documents preserved in the chapel's archives, including the Guest Books (1970–2024) and the private correspondence of its founders, John and Dominique de Menil. The programme concludes with a reflection on Feldman's late works, in which duration itself becomes compositional material and time is transformed into a perceptual environment. In the large-scale compositions of the 1980s, traditional narrative development gives way to an immersive mode of listening founded upon almost imperceptible timbral transformations and an unprecedented experience of memory and perception. The series comprises four lectures presented by Alfonso Alberti, Beatrice Fellegara and Francesca Pola, Francesca Zanella, and Roberto Andreoni, alongside four concerts performed by some of the leading interpreters of contemporary music. Irvine Arditti, Erik Bertsch, Michele Marelli and Emanuele Torquati, together with the Ensemble Prometeo Trio—Mario Caroli, Ciro Longobardi and Simone Beneventi—will present programmes placing Feldman's works in dialogue with those of John Cage, Roger Reynolds, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Elliott Carter, David Lang, Mario Bertoncini and Franz Schubert, illuminating the historical and aesthetic context in which Feldman's poetics continue to exert a profound influence today. With Sound Painting Time, Fondazione Prometeo renews its commitment to promoting contemporary music through a project that transcends disciplinary boundaries and invites audiences to experience sound as an exploration of space, time and perception. It offers an opportunity to rediscover Morton Feldman not only as one of the great composers of the twentieth century, but also as a central figure in the dialogue between music, the visual arts and contemporary thought. Fondazione Prometeo ETS