Roma Capitale presents its project, part of the ‘Roma Smart Tourism’ initiative, which gives life to an unprecedented narration of six of the city's most evocative places through a series of open-air acoustic itineraries.
In a combination of music, historical identity and aesthetics, Monumenti Sonori is an immersive experience in which some of the ‘silent witnesses’ of the memories of the Eternal City, with sound perfectly integrated with their architecture and landscapes, reveal to passers-by and visitors details and settings of the sites concerned. Each monument will have a local control system connected to a remote digital system, receiving musical data from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Represented by the motto 'every place tells a story', the project kicks off with the first stage at the Portico d'Ottavia, where a sound background, realised with hidden audio sources, resonates the volumes and spaces adjacent to the walkway, also highlighting the pedestrian crossing section with a sound projector (holographic), conceived by Crm, author of the entire sonological project. The experience, enjoyable for free every day, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., is accompanied by excerpts from historical recordings of Tosca by Puccini, Pini di Roma, Feste romane and Fontane di Roma by Respighi, Love Theme, the soundtrack of Nuovo Cinema Paradiso by Andrea Morricone, and some music from Mission soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.
The following stages, to be unveiled in the next few months, will involve five more monuments in several city areas, from Flaminio to Magliana, with an ongoing programme until November 2025.
Monumenti Sonori is part of Action 4, ‘Tourism Enhancement through the Cinema’, of the ‘ Roma Smart Tourism’ project, winner of the ‘Public Notice regarding the identification of projects aimed at the enhancement of Municipalities with a tourist-cultural vocation in whose territories are located UNESCO World Heritage Sites and of the Municipalities belonging to the network of UNESCO Creative Cities’, issued by the Ministry of Tourism and validated by the Unesco Sites and Creative Cities Fund. The project also includes four new tourist-cinema itineraries - which will dialogue with Monumenti Sonori - curated by the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, available through the new Rome City of Film app.
The initiative is conceived by the Assessorato alla Cultura di Roma Capitale with the coordination of the Dipartimento alle Attività Culturali and the collaboration of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali and the Fondazione Cinema per Roma. The artistic project has been realised by the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia supported by the Centro Ricerche Musicali - Crm, with which the artistic and technical investigation of the monuments was conducted. The organisational coordination is by Zètema Progetto Cultura.