The Festival of Contemporary Music organised and lovingly curated by composer Ada Gentile with the collaboration of Rome’s foreign academies, cultural institutes, embassies and state and city institutions.

Concerts take place in the historic venues of the Hungarian Academy’s Palazzo Falconieri, the Polish Academy’s Palazzo Blumensthil and the American Academy’s Villa Aurelia, and they are all free of charge.

The festival kicks off with the performance of two “pocket-sized” operas, each of them not longer than 25 minutes by two well-known Italian composers: Fabrizio De Rossi and Marco Betta. They will be performed by young musicians picked by Music Conservatories on 4 Oct.

The second event foresees a collaboration with the Union of Ukrainian Composers and features the performance by the young accordion player Cesare Chacchieretta, of works by Ligeti, Rosato, Remigio, Gianfreda and Gentile on 8 Oct.

The Meitar Ensemble from Tel Aviv performs for the first time in Rome on 11 Oct, and on 15 Oct the young Armenian pianist Hayk Melikyan plays works by contemporary Armenian, Italian and Polish composers.

The festival ends in the beautiful setting of Villa Aurelia with a chamber concert by the Pulse Chamber Music ensemble from Miami in a programme which includes works by winners of the Luciano Berio Rome Prize, of the Elliot Carter Rome Prize, and by the Pulitzer Prize for Music, Jennifer Higdon on 22 Oct. For detailed information see www.adagentile.it.