Michele Dall'Ongaro on the Future of Music and Art

Michele Dall'Ongaro, president-superintendent of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, shares his vision of the future in an interview. Born in Rome in 1957, he studied at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia and co-founded Spettro Sonoro. He collaborated with the RAI Symphony Orchestra in 1980 and served as a consultant for the Fondazione RomaEuropa in the 1990s, also working in the Music sector of the Venice Biennale. In 2001, he was on the artistic committee of the 51st Sanremo Festival. Dall'Ongaro describes his inspiration as a synthesis of diverse worlds: spectacle, cinema, radio, music, theater from his maternal lineage, and fantasy from his writer father. He emphasizes the importance of the Genius Loci, but as a mental construct—a personal labyrinth of ever-changing reference points. He critiques the 'liquid society' of Bauman, where discontinuity and transience dominate, and a common home is yet to be rebuilt. For the future, he envisions an exacerbated version of the present, a 'caricature' until a new creativity emerges. He offers three guiding ideas: managing the multiverse on Earth, finding new answers to 20th-century problems like democracy and civil rights, and never underestimating the power of art. He advises young artists to be courageous, curious, and cultured like Lully, who understood France's need for a national identity. Dall'Ongaro considers art always true and sacred, and himself a priest of music.