Academy Radio returns: students talk about the Gallery's masterpieces in podcasts

Radio Accademia, a project born of the collaboration between the Accademia diBelle Arti di Firenze and the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze that aims to tell the story of masterpieces preserved in the museum venue through podcasts, with narration interpreted by some students of the School of Art Didactics of the Accademia di Belle Arti, is back.

Starting today, March 2, the first three of six new podcasts, dedicated to Giovanni Dal Ponte’s polyptych The Coronation of the Virgin, Giambologna ’s Rape of the Sabine Women and Silvestro Lega’s David Calming the Fury of Saul, will be online on the Accademia Gallery website; next will be online Perugino’s The Deposition of Christ from the Cross, Luigi Mussini ’s Sacred Music, and, on the occasion of Women’s Day, a podcast dedicated to the Master of Magdalene’s painting, St. Mary Magdalene and Eight Stories of Her Life, will be online.

Giving voice to the Gallery’s masterpieces were students Enrico Budri, Chiara Calzolari, Isabella Maria Gisotti, Francesca Alberghina, Dina Ceccherini, Marco Bello, Beatrice Cervi, Marco Delvecchio, Andrea Toschi, Andrea Ceddia, Carol De Sario, Priscilla Melchionno, Leonardo Moscardi and Beatrice Murphy. Sound design is by Saverio Damiani.

“I am always enthusiastic,” says Cecilie Hollberg, Gallery director, “about involving young people in our cultural projects, and I am pleasantly impressed by their energy and imagination in producing such engaging and often entertaining podcasts. The success of this initiative spurs us to continue to develop more and more new projects for young people and with young people to bring them closer to the knowledge of our cultural heritage in the most virtuous way.”

“We continue, and with much satisfaction, our collaboration with the Academy Gallery, which in recent months has been a real training ground for students approaching the job of museum educator,” comments the director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Claudio Rocca. “A figure we have been training since 2017 with a three-year course in which we believed a lot and which is now beginning to bear fruit with the first graduates ready to bring new ideas and skills to the service of museums. For this we also have to thank the Gallery and all the museums in the Metropolitan City, and beyond, with which we have partnered over the years to grow a new generation of art mediators.”

Radio Academy is a project born in December 2020, in the months of lockdown, which set itself the dual goal of stimulating students’ creative potential and offering them a concrete field of application. The result has been work that has seen students test themselves on multiple levels: from writing texts and dialogues to recording and soundtracking, taking advantage of scientific input from museum officials. The recordings are all home made, only later did a sound technician level and clean up the audio of the stories.

Image: Giovanni Dal Ponte, Coronation of the Virgin (Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia)

Academy Radio returns: students talk about the Gallery's masterpieces in podcasts

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