Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa Performed in Dan Flavin's Light Installation at Chiesa Rossa, Milan

On an unspecified date in 2020, the production agency Threes presented a concert of Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa at the Chiesa Rossa (Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa) in Milan, a church featuring a permanent site-specific neon light installation by Dan Flavin titled Untitled (1966). The installation, commissioned by Reverend Giulio Greco for the church's renovation, uses colored neon tubes (green, blue, pink, gold, ultraviolet) to bathe the interior, creating a progression from night to dawn to day. The concert opened with Prognostic@act by Lithuanian artist Antanas Jasenka and Étancher la soif by Philippe Leguérinel, inspired by Karl Krolow's text. Sound was spatialized via an Acusmonium, a multi-speaker system designed by François Bayle in 1974 for Radio France, built by the association AUDIOR (founded 2015 by Eraldo Bocca and Dante Tanzi). Threes has organized concerts at Chiesa Rossa since 2017, featuring William Basinski (2017), Charlemagne Palestine (2018), and this spatialized interpretation. The event was nearly sold out, lasting 90 minutes. The article, written by Bianca Felicori, praises the quality but questions audience engagement with the demanding music.