Musica Libera: Two New Events Join the 70th Venice Biennale Contemporary Music Festival

The 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music, organized by the Venice Biennale and directed by Caterina Barbieri, will feature two additional events under the title Musica Libera. These events are scheduled for October 18 and 24 and will take place in the courtyard of the women’s penitentiary on Venice’s Giudecca island, which is centered around the historic core of the former Church and Monastery of the Convertite.

Musica Libera will present the results of a workshop that involved women from the institution, young musicians from Biennale College Musica, and their mentors. The performances are the culmination of collaborative sessions held within the prison, emphasizing the involvement of both the incarcerated women and the musicians.

The initiative is designed to reflect a cultural programming approach that values the therapeutic power of music. It treats artistic creation not as a passive object for consumption, but as a possible channel for catharsis and collective transformation, according to the organizers.

In keeping with the festival’s theme, which is dedicated to childhood and intuition, the sessions were structured to create spaces for authentic creative freedom. There was no pressure on participants to achieve predetermined results imposed from above, allowing for genuine self-expression.

The core of Musica Libera lies in its choral nature, which is based on listening, vulnerability, expressive urgency, and co-creation, rather than on a fixed compositional method. This approach distinguishes the project from more traditional models of musical creation.

Musica Libera is presented alongside Rinasco con l’Arte, another initiative promoted by the Venice Biennale that aims to strengthen relationships with penitentiary institutions. This reflects a broader commitment to engaging with the prison community through cultural activities.

The organizers have expressed their gratitude to the women’s penitentiary of Venice Giudecca, the Department of Penitentiary Administration, and the regional penitentiary administration of Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Trentino Alto Adige. Those wishing to attend one of the Musica Libera events at the 70th International Festival of Contemporary Music will need to register online through the Venice Biennale website, with further details on registration procedures to be announced.