The Academy is pleased to announce its fall series of public programs, inviting the community to hear from artists, performers, musicians, and scholars at events in Rome and New York. The fall season marks a time of new beginnings as we welcome the new class of Rome Prize Fellows, Italian Fellows, Residents, and Affiliated Artists & Scholars to the Academy.
September
The semester officially kicks off with AAR President Peter N. Miller’s Presidential Lecture on Wednesday, September 9, 2026 at 6.30 PM. This year’s lecture, “Why Research Matters,” will explore what a history of research could look like, the value of research institutions such as the Academy in the present moment, and the future of research in the time of AI. The lecture will be held in English in the Academy’s Lecture Room in the McKim, Mead & White Building.
As part of the 41st edition of the Romaeuropa Festival, the Academy is co-presenting Field of Vision, an immersive performance composed by Michael Gordon, the 2027 Paul Fromm Resident in Composition at the American Academy in Rome, and performed by Blow Up Percussion on September 19 at 6:00 PM. The composition will be brought to life by thirty-six percussionists, invited by Blow Up Percussion through an international open call, who will create a three-dimensional sonic experience in the Academy’s Mercedes T. Bass Garden.
October
On Thursday, October 15, 2026, at 6:30 PM, Dr. Anthony Grafton (2004 Resident) will deliver a public lecture on the occasion of being awarded the 2026 International Prize for History by the International Committee of Historical Sciences. Open to the public through RSVP, the lecture is entitled “The Undocumented Past: Conjectural History in Renaissance Europe.” Grafton is the Henry Putnam University Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University and author of books including Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation and Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa.
The Academy’s fall exhibition, Giorgio Griffa / Kamrooz Aram: Paintings, will open on Tuesday, October 20, 2026 with a reception from 6:00 – 9:00 PM. The exhibition creates a dialogue between the two painters Giorgio Griffa and Kamrooz Aram (2024 Fellow), who met in Turin in 2024, and extends the conversation they began about abstraction, cultural tradition, painting as a measure of time and rhythm, and the ways gesture is captured on canvas. The show will be on display from October 20 to November 28, 2026 at the AAR Gallery.
Giulia Colletti, the 2026 Italian Fellow in Curatorial Research sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Culture, will organize a multimedia event, “They Make You Write Your Poems,” on Tuesday, October 27, 2026 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM at Onassis ONX in New York. Building on her research at the Academy into fragmented digital ecosystems and generative AI, this public program will bring together artists and computational designers for a series of performances and installations.
The fall season will also include the Academy’s annual New York Gala on October 29, 2026, in New York. This year, the Academy will present its Centennial Medals to Suzanne Deal Booth, Emily Wilson (2006 Fellow), and Fred Wilson (2020 Resident), recognizing their significant contributions to the arts and humanities and their connection to the Academy. Held at the New York Public Library, the Gala brings together the Academy’s community in support of the essential role of the arts and humanities in contemporary society.
November and December
The three-day conference and concert series On Improvisation: Sound, Space, Thought will feature performances, reflections, and panel discussions exploring the theme of improvisation. The event is curated by George E. Lewis (2010 Resident), Professor of Music at Columbia University, AAR Trustee, and Artistic Director of International Contemporary Ensemble; Ilaria Puri Purini, AAR Executive Director Galileo Week 2027, Chief Curator, and Acting Heiskell Arts Director; and Paolo Rotili of Nuova Consonanza, an organization dedicated to Italian experimental and improvised music. The event will take place November 23–25, 2026 at the Academy’s Villa Aurelia and Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.
For this year's Jerome Lectures at the Academy, Edward Watts, Alkiviadis Vassiliadis Endowed Chair and Professor of History at the University of California San Diego, will deliver a series of lectures on the subject of Interchronological Roman History, from December 3–10, 2026. Across three lectures— What is Interchronological Roman History?, Interchronological History and the Political Power of Roman Women, and An Interchronological Approach to Roman Religion and Political History—Watts will explore how Roman educational, family, religious, and literary culture interpreted the present and imagining the future by engaging with the past.
These exhibitions, performances, lectures, talks, and other public programs open the Academy to the public, offering unique opportunities for cultural institutions and artists from around the world to come together and collaborate. Please visit our website for more information about each event, as some programs may require advance RSVP or ticket purchase due to limited space.
Looking ahead to the spring, the Academy will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Rome Sustainable Food Project with a multi-day conference bringing together chefs, producers, scholars and botanists to reflect on the program’s pioneering vision. Galileo Week, our annual conference in April, will feature interdisciplinary conversations among artists, scientists, and humanists. And our 2026-2027 Fellows, including those who began in the fall, will present their work to the public during Open Studies and Open Stacks.