the contest selection

JERUS-IT-ARTS International Contest
Music, Dance, Performing and Visual Arts

Watch the live stream of the April 8th event.

The contest invited the creation of artistic and performative works that reflect, interpret, or make visible the historical and contemporary connections between Italy and Jerusalem and, more broadly, across the Mediterranean.

The call for artworks resulted in the selection of 4 contributions that foster intercultural dialogue, recognise and value diversity, and generate compelling artistic narratives across music, dance, and visual media.

The contest’s participants will be celebrated in a dedicated online event on 8 April at 6 pm CET. Follow our social media channels to attend the event and engage in dialogue with the artists.

Follow the live stream of the April 8th event.

The selected projects

Music

Mahmoud Abuwarda
Sonata Fantasia for solo cello

Mahmoud Abuwarda is a Palestinian professional, composer and guitarist from Gaza, residing in Istanbul.

In Sonata Fantasia for solo cello, composed specifically for the JERUS-IT-ARTS project, the author explores the cello as a meeting point between different traditions, in a work composed specifically for the JERUS-IT-ARTS contest. The work blends Western classical structure with melodic and rhythmic inflections inspired by Eastern musical traditions, treating the latter not as literal quotations but as an integral part of the musical fabric.

The work demonstrates strong adherence to the project’s theme, unfolding across multiple expressive registers, revealing its full emotional depth through repeated listening.

From a compositional standpoint, the score displays advanced and fully conscious writing. The decision to adopt a purely instrumental approach, without the use of text, allows the author’s identity to emerge implicitly while offering a more abstract and universal perspective.

Music

Yousef Sakhnini
Music composition for piano solo

Yousef Sakhnini is a Palestinian composer living in Haifa. He proposed to JERUS-IT-ARTS Contest an original solo piano composition structured in 4 miniatures representing different character aspects of Jerusalem: "Voices Beneath the Ground" (echo of the past), "Inside the Walls" (conflict and siege), "Beauty in Jerusalem" (spirituality and beauty that blooms from tension), and "Layers upon Layers" (a polyphonic fugue symbolizing historical stratification). The music is moving, profound, and carefully crafted, showing solid compositional technique and an appropriate stylistic language that successfully unites musical elements from Italy and Jerusalem. From a compositional standpoint, the work displays strong formal control through its four-movement structure, incorporating classical forms such as sonata form, A–B–A, and fugue, while simultaneously engaging in original timbral research, notably through the integration of Arab modal scales within the piano writing. The narrative dimension is equally compelling: each miniature is accompanied by a thoughtful and non-stereotypical description that offers a nuanced reading of the city, revealing notable sensitivity in both artistic approach and narrative development.

dance

Chiara Geraci
Elaia

Chiara Geraci is a dancer and a composition student at the National Academy of Dance. The work presents a dance performance that uses the olive tree as a symbol of dialogue among Mediterranean cultures. Its symbolic strength is deliberately challenged, revealing its inability to prevent suffering, death, and destruction. The narrative unfolds through a pressing succession of evocative images that alternate between hope (the olive branch placed in a bottle, entrusted to the Mediterranean shores), violence and loss (the fallen bodies of the dancers), and intercultural dialogue (sacred gestures framing the beginning and the end of the performance). The sonic tension, combined with expressive and evocative body language, creates an intense atmosphere in which moments of conflict and violence alternate with moments of release, effectively reflecting the condition of the Mediterranean as a space marked by fracture and hope. The work is carefully structured and almost cinematic in its narrative construction. The use of space and the interaction among bodies are coherent and well controlled, contributing to a high level of performative quality and emotional impact. The choreography and music work together to address and develop multiple themes outlined in the project, encouraging intercultural reflection and dialogue in line with the contest’s objectives.

Video performance

Andrea Strizzi
Toccare il suono - Impronte sonore

Andrea Strizzi is a sculptor and decorator, born in Giussano, who has placed the interaction between drawing, sculpture, and music at the center of his work. The work is accompanied by sounds of beats of varying intensity. It proposes a musical and tactile journey engraved in clay, a material that unites all the shores of the Mediterranean. It materialises the relationship between tactile and auditory perception through the interaction of the viewer, who is invited to touch the artworks while simultaneously listening to the sounds produced during the performative action.

The video functions primarily as a documentation and extension of a live, participatory artistic experience. The artwork is conceived as an open process in which the generative act of carving signs into clay is repeated and activated by the public, allowing participants to construct their own paths through tactile engravings and corresponding sounds. This approach, designed to engage multiple senses and to be accessible also to visually impaired audiences, opens diverse modes of reception and represents a meaningful exploration of inclusivity.