=The 42nd Festival di Nuova Consonanza continues with two concerts at the French Academy.

At the first, on 15 Dec at 19.00, the trio Roberto Fabbriciani (flute), Leonard Elschenbroich (cello) and Roberto Prosseda (piano) will perform music by modern composers such as Lombardi and Clementi. The programme includes Saluto a Miriam, on occasion of her marriage to me myself and Study on monotony.

The second event, on 17 Dec at 19.00, features innovative music by Tristan Murail and Giacinto Scelsi, ranging from Tellur (1977) for guitar to La barque mystique (1993) for classical instruments and Lilitu (1962) for voice only.

French Academy, Villa Medici, Viale Trinit dei Monti 1, tel. 0667611, www.villamedici.it.

=American writer James Galvin will read from his recent poetry at the American Academy on 15 Dec at 18.00.

Galvin, who is also a novelist, was born in northern Colorado, in the United States, and his native land has played a key role in his work. In fact, most of his literary works evoke the landscape of the Colorado-Wyoming border, a way of life, an environment, an ethic, I saw disappearing, as he says in his memoirs Meadow (1992).

In the poems, harsh and tender tones are intermingled, mirroring the life the Colorado inhabitants once had. Such notes can be seen in the following verses taken from the poem Resurrection Update (1997):

Only up was gone. Up was away

Earth still spun

As it stalled and drifted darkward,

Sublime,

An aspirin in a glass of water.

American Academy, Via Angelo Masina 5, tel. 065846459, www.aarome.org.

=Fine arts scholars are to show their work at the British School at Rome.

Primarily inspired by the artists stay in Rome, the exhibits range from painting to sculpture and video installation. Inauguration 14 Dec, 18.00; then 15-17 Dec and 19-23 Dec, 16.30-19.00. Admission free.

The British School at Rome, Via Gramsci 61, tel. 0663264939.

=Events at the Japanese Cultural Institute continue with a concert for shakuhachi and koto on 1 Dec at 21.00.

Shakuhachi is a bamboo flute traditionally used by the Japanese Zen Buddhist monks to help meditation. Koto is a horizontal harp-like instrument. Both shakuhachi and koto are used in traditional Japanese music as well as for jazz and classical performances.

Hiroshi Yonezawa (shakuhachi) and Eriko Kumazawa (koto) will perform selected classical pieces alternated with short explanations relating to the history of the two instruments. Admission free.

Japanese Cultural Institute, Via Antonio Gramsci 74, tel. 063224794/54, www.jfroma.it.

=Professor Antonio Bini, lecturer at the University of Teramo (Abruzzo), will speak about Danish painters in the town of Civit DAntino in the province of LAquila (Abruzzo) at the Danish Academy on 2 Dec at 17.30. This little town founded by the Marsians the ancient inhabitants of the Abruzzo region was once a popular place for Danish painters, providing inspiration for their work.

On the same occasion, Danish writer Stig Holstig will present the second edition of the book Civit dAntino by Johannes Jrgensen, recently translated into Italian by Bruno Berni.

The book is a touching description of the earthquake that devastated Civit dAntino in 1915. Jrgensen is also the author of books about the life and deeds of St Francis of Assisi and St Catherine of Siena. Danish Academy, Via Omero 18, tel. 0632659343/53.

=The Cervantes Institute is hosting the exhibition Juan Manuel Diaz-Caneja to mark the centenary of the Spanish painters birth.

The show focuses on the painters activity at the Vazques-Diaz art school, where he made his debut, and at that of Vallecas. It also devotes considerable space to the relationship between Diaz-Caneja and other artists of the Spanish avant-garde, such as Benjamin Palencia, Alberto Sanchez and Francisco Gutierrez Cosso. 15 Dec-29 Jan 2006. Admission free.

Cervantes Institute, Sala dellIstituto Cervantes, Piazza Navona 91, tel. 068551949.

=The Romanian Academy, in conjunction with the Eastern Pontifical College, Austrian Historic Institute, Centre for Byzantine Studies, Saint Louis de France Cultural Centre and High School for Social Sciences of Paris, has organised a series of conferences dedicated to the role played by the Patriarchate of Istanbul during the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans.

Different scholars will redefine in the light of documents that have been discovered recently on the Island of Chio in the Aegean Sea the position of the patriarchate through the centuries, its contribution to the preservation of Christianity among Romanians and the relationship with the Catholic Church.

The conferences take place in three different venues: 5 Dec, Romanian Academy, 09.30; 6 Dec, Eastern Pontifical College, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore 7, 09.30; 7 Dec, Austrian Historic Institute, Viale Bruno Buozzi 113, 09.30.

Romanian Academy, Piazza Jos de San Martin 1, tel. 063201594, www.accadromania.it.

=The Austrian Historic Institute has organised a series of meetings dedicated to the revolutionary legacy of the remarkable Austrian historian Alois Riegl, 30 Nov-2, Dec, 09.00-13.00; 15.00-19.00.

The conferences, focusing on Riegls contribution to the modern methodology of history, cover three principal fields: the cultural context in which Riegls theories were elaborated; his concept of the period of late antiquity; and historic and artistic thought.

Riegl became famous when, with Franz Wickhoff, he founded the Vienna school of Art History (1894). For the first time in history, art was approached empirically and art poques such as the Baroque until then considered decadent were rediscovered. Austrian Historic Institute, Viale Bruno Buozzi 113. For information tel. 0636082261.