Inner_Spaces announces its 2026 autumn season, scheduled from September 14 to December 20 between the San Fedele Auditorium and the San Fedele Church in Milan. Nine events, promoted by the San Fedele Cultural Foundation, make up the cycle Transversal portraitswhich brings together artists of different generations, traditions and aesthetics, united by a recognizable stylistic trait and a common tension towards sound research. Several works will be presented in residence and in preview.
The concept of portrait, explains the exhibition, is a genre that has always run through the history of art and literature: the attempt to condense the uniqueness of a person into a few strokes. In the new season the idea becomes a key to understanding musicians who come from long and consolidated paths, from more recent scenes or from centuries-old oral traditions, working on memory, on sonic tension, on the transmission of ancient practices or on the real-time transformation of electronic material.
The paradigmatic figure of the entire cycle is Arvo Pärt, to whom the November 30th appointment is dedicated, which retraces much of his journey from the years of the tintinnabuli turning point, in 1976, up to his most recent production – a musical itinerary that is intertwined with the theological and spiritual one of the Estonian composer. The concert is one of two events at the Church of San Fedele.
Alongside Pärt, the season brings together very different approaches to sound: Steve Reich and his grammar of gradual processes, Ivan Fedele and the balance between constructive rigor and timbral imagination, Ben Frost, who brings sound towards immersive experience and the physical threshold of perception, Aho Ssan, between electroacoustic composition and digital cultures, and Tim Exile, who builds his practice on real-time transformation, on the border between composition, improvisation and performance.
Another strand of the review concerns the most elusive qualities of sound, starting with Eliane Radigue, who passed away in February 2026, a pioneer of electronic music with landscapes built on minimal variations and listening extended over time. A similar sensitivity for continuity and imperceptible transformations also runs through the work of Stefan Betke aka Pole, of Loscil, with his ambient architectures capable of evoking spaces and memories, and of Robert Lippok, whose research combines compositional rigor and interest in the physical qualities of sound.
Among the most original voices of the current generation are Beatrice Dillon, working on new forms of rhythmic and timbral organisation, Mor Elian, coming from club culture but active well beyond its borders, Carmen Villain, who interweaves ambient and field recordings into soundscapes of intimate narration, and Hélène Vogelsinger, who builds slowly expanding textures through the modular synthesizer.
The season dedicates a specific axis to the transmission of oral practices: Wasifuddin Dagar represents one of the most authoritative voices of the dhrupad tradition, while on November 9, in co-production with Linecheck Music Meeting and Festival, Colapesce, Alfio Antico and Mario Conte reread materials from popular traditions and ancient repertoires in a contemporary key.
The program is completed by Andy Stott, with his slowed down and layered reinterpretation of electronic music, the Collectif G (Maroussia Gentet and Matvey Zheleznyakov), working on the repertoire of the historical twentieth century, Luigi Tozzi, who brings his ambient work Deep Blue live, and Andrew Quinn, whose visual research translates invisible phenomena into perceivable forms.
Rolling Stone Italia will be the media partnership of the event. Tickets and season tickets at this link.
The program:
Monday 14 September
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Beatrice Dillon
New work in residence, premiere
– Loscil
Lake Fire (audiovisual)
Monday 28 September – in collaboration with Syntax Ensemble
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Syntax Ensemble
music by Steve Reich and Ivan Fedele
– Ben Frost
New work in residence, premiere
Monday 5 October
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Mor Elian
Solid Space
– Carmen Villain
Memoria (Italian premiere)
Monday 19 October – with the support of the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation – Franco-Italian foundation to support contemporary creation, in collaboration with Institut Français Milano
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Aho San
– Tim Exile
New set, premiere
Monday 26 October – with the support of the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation – Franco-Italian foundation to support contemporary creation, in collaboration with Institut Français Milano
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Hélène Vogelsinger
– Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar (dhrupad), Mohan Shyam Sharma (Pakhawaj)
Monday 9 November – in co-production with Linecheck Music Meeting and Festival, in collaboration with Institut Français Milano
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Eliane Radigue – Andrew Quinn (visual)
Jetsun Mila 2
– Colapesce, Alfio Antico, Mario Conte
Monday 16 November – with the support of the Nuovi Mecenati Foundation – Franco-Italian foundation to support contemporary creation, in collaboration with Institut Français Milano
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Collectif G: Maroussia Gentet, Matvey Zheleznyakov
George Crumb: Makrokosmos IV – Celestial Mechanics
Maurice Ravel: Spanish Rhapsodies
–Andy Stott
Monday 30 November – in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Mailand
8.30pm Church of San Fedele
Sacred representation
The Song of Orpheus, dir. Gianluca Capuano
music by Arvo Pärt
Robert Lippok
Ars Discantica
Monday 14 December – in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Mailand
8.30pm San Fedele Auditorium
– Luigi Tozzi presents Deep Blue live
– Pole (Stefan Betke)
Sunday 20 December
4.30pm Church of San Fedele
Christmas Concert (TBD)
