An encounter
is the beginning
of something.
Accordi di Pace began in Rome in 2016 as a series of intimate musical encounters between artists associated with different cultures and territories affected by conflict or difficult coexistence. Five encounters brought together musicians from Kurdistan and Iraq, from Iranian and Jewish musical traditions, from Italian and Rom traditions, from Burkina Faso and Mali, and from Tibet and China.
The performances were deliberately intimate, forty people, a small stage, no political ceremony. Each musician brought their own musical language and repertoire, while the other listened, accompanied and gradually entered that language. Each encounter culminated in free improvisation whose outcome neither musician could predict.
Those five encounters established an artistic foundation: proof that two musicians from divided worlds, given shared time and space, can arrive somewhere neither could have reached alone. The project now seeks to develop that foundation into a sustained residential methodology with professional documentary production, research collaboration and European institutional reach.
Accordi di Pace is an initiative of Culture del Mondo, a Rome-based cultural association dedicated to intercultural dialogue, artistic exchange and the promotion of peace through culture.
What we believe.
What we do not claim.
These principles shape every decision Accordi di Pace makes, about who is invited, how the encounter is structured, what the documentary may show, and what the project will never ask of its participants. They are drawn from the Accordi di Pace Charter v0.1.
The encounter is the work — not the concert.
The public performance is the culmination of something that has already begun. Days of shared time, shared meals, musical exploration and the gradual construction of a temporary common language. The concert makes that visible once.
Music is not a cure for conflict.
Accordi di Pace does not claim that art resolves political disputes or that musicians can do what governments cannot. Its value lies elsewhere: in what the quality of musical listening might make possible between people whose histories have been placed in opposition.
Artists are not political representatives.
Participants are invited because they are exceptional artists with the curiosity, generosity and improvisational ability to enter an unknown musical conversation. They are not asked to speak for a nation, community, religion or ideology.
The human encounter comes first.
The artists must have the opportunity to meet one another as people before they become subjects of a public narrative. The project protects the early encounter from ceremony, political theatre and premature publicity.
The project creates conditions, not outcomes.
The encounter may produce friendship, discomfort, disagreement, discovery, extraordinary music, failure, or something that cannot be named in advance. All of these possibilities belong to the work. Nothing is pre-scripted.
The institution exists to protect simplicity.
Production, funding, research and documentary structures exist for one purpose, to give two musicians the time and space to arrive somewhere together. The more sophisticated the institution becomes, the simpler the encounter should feel.
What happens when two human beings who come from divided worlds are given the time, space and freedom to meet through music?Accordi di Pace · Charter v0.1
Culture del Mondo.
Rome, Italy.
- Founded
- Rome, Italy
- Mission
- Promoting intercultural dialogue, peace and artistic exchange across communities shaped by conflict or difficult histories.
- Initiatives
- Accordi di Pace · Spiritual Bridges · and other intercultural cultural programmes
- Address
- Piazza di Santa Chiara 49 · Roma 00186 · Italy
- Contact
- info@culturedelmondo.org
- Website
- culturedelmondo.org ↗
Culture del Mondo is a Rome-based cultural association founded to promote intercultural dialogue, peace and artistic exchange. It is the originating institution and producing organisation behind Accordi di Pace, and remains the artistic and creative core of the project as it develops into its next stage.
The association was built on the belief that culture can create conditions for human encounter that political processes often cannot. Its programmes bring together artists, communities and institutions across boundaries shaped by history, geography, religion and conflict.
Accordi di Pace is the flagship initiative — but it is one part of a wider practice that includes intercultural events, exhibitions, documentary projects and educational programmes in Rome and beyond.
Culture del Mondo operates at the scale of intimacy rather than spectacle. Its ambition is not to produce large events but to create conditions for genuine encounter — between artists, between traditions, between people who would not otherwise share a room.
Visit culturedelmondo.org →
The archive is built.
The residency begins.
Five encounters were completed in Rome in 2016. They established the artistic foundation, proved the methodology, and demonstrated that the proposition was worth pursuing. The archive is now documented, verified and publicly accessible through this site.
The next stage is the pilot residential encounter, a longer, more fully documented version of the original format, with professional documentary production, research collaboration, and the institutional partnerships required to make it repeatable.
If you want to be part of that next stage, as an artist, an institution, a researcher, a documentary partner or a funder, we want to hear from you.
Find your role →