Music Facilities - Diapason School

The A&HST Music Program is housed in the excellent facilities of the Diapason School (“diapason” means tuning-fork in Italian), a local community music school located in Ravacciano, a lovely area just outside the Siena city walls, within easy walking distance from the center.  Several city buses also serve the area.

Our music school has all the required amenities: stands and chairs, practice rooms, pianos, computer equipment, classrooms and rehearsal spaces, and a small recital hall.  The stage is set for a successful music program.

These facilities allow us to offer a semester-long program in music that makes it possible for music majors from all over the United States and Europe to spend an entire semester studying music in Siena while immersed in Italian language and culture, and still stay on track in their home degree programs.

The Accademia Musicale Chigiana

The Arts & Humanities Semester in Tuscany has also entered into an agreement with the world famous and highly venerated Accademia Musicale Chigiana (www.chigiana.it). This agreement offers our students reduced ticket prices to concerts and recitals offered at the Palazzo Chigi-Saracini (€4 rather than €10 or €18), and we are also currently negotiating with the Chigiana for use of their facilities for our own courses and concerts.  Stay tuned for more information on this extremely exciting opportunity!

Siena Jazz

For students interested in jazz lessons and combo/jazz band playing, the Arts & Humanities Semester in Tuscany has worked out an agreement with Siena Jazz, a comprehensive jazz education program housed in excellent facilities in the medieval Fortezza in the center of Siena.  The A&HST will facilitate enrollment in Siena Jazz for its students during the academic year.

Music Program

In addition to the intensive and regular Italian courses, service learning, and other academic courses, we can now offer music students the possibility of private lessons, chamber music, music theory, music history, and other courses on request, all in a facility eminently suited for our purposes. 

We look forward to welcoming not only music students to our program, but also music faculty who may want to bring students to our facility and organize courses and programs ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months.

At this point, we are able to offer:

• Instrument/Voice lessons – 1-3 credits
• Music History – 3 credits
• Music Theory – 3 credits
• Chamber Music – 1 credit
• Orchestra (in the orchestra of the local conservatory, and/or the recently formed Orchestra Brunelleschi)
• Recital Performance – 1 credit
• Italian Opera – 2 credits
• The Diversity of Italian Song, Dance and Dialects -- 3 credits
• Individual Project – 1-3 credits
• Concert and Recital Attendance – 1 credit

For more information, please contact Professor Johan Jonsson, Director of the Arts & Humanities Semester in Tuscany, and professor of violin and viola at Montana State University, at jjonsson@montana.edu.