2011-2012 - The Italian Academy - Columbia University

to their own poetics and worldviews. During my stay at the Academy
I was able to further narrow down these directors to just a
few—Elizabeth LeCompte, Robert Wilson, Trisha Brown, Pierluigi
Pizzi, and Luca Ronconi—and to refine my approach. I was able,
for example, to explore the archives of LeCompte’s company, The
Wooster Group, and watch a magnificent retrospective of films of
their productions at the Anthology Film Archives; and I could study
the videos of the rehearsals of Robert Wilson’s productions preserved
at the New York Public Library, visit his workshop at Water
Mill, and watch his works presented in various venues, like the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. I greatly benefited also from presenting
my work in the graduate seminar on music history held by Prof.
Giuseppe Gerbino, the Chair of the Music Department at Columbia,
with whom I developed a long-term research collaboration.
But perhaps one the most important results for my research
and for my intellectual growth came from participating in the
interdisciplinary discussions held among the Fellows after the
weekly lunches on the fifth floor of the Academy. In hearing and
discussing a dazzling array of talks, on topics from Dante to the
Futurists to neuroscience, I came to the conclusion that the focus
of my book ought to be the relationships between the now and
the then, between today and the past. Hence my Spring talk—and
the writing that resulted from it—focused on the historiographical
views that various directors convey through their productions of
Baroque works.
My research and writing immensely profited not only from
the focus that the comfortable setting that the Academy offers its
Fellows (including the help of its incredibly cordial and efficient
staff) but also from the many events that the Academy often hosts
(concerts, exhibitions, conferences) and from the constant sharing
of ideas fostered by the close proximity to an extraordinary group
of scholars of the most diverse academic orientations, competences,
career stages, and geographical provenances.
Mauro Calcagno returns to his position as Associate Professor of Music at
the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
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