I start this dissertation during a stay in Palermo, Sicily. In front of my hotel, the Collegio Santa Maria della Sapienza. From the locals I learn that it first stood on a much smaller square. After wartime bombings in 1943, though, its ruins spread over a much larger area, and as youngsters found playfields among the fallen stones and passersby rested under the shadows of the ruins, a larger square was formed, known today as Piazza Maggione. From the window of my room, I do not see the ruined building, I see through it: off the shattered windows, the reflection of the sun rays. Amidst the crumbled stones, the straight trunks of trees. In the form of graffitis and wild grass, the present bouncing on decrepit walls. Around the static edifice, the wind blows, frenetic, people move, in haste. Movement and stand-still coexisting, interacting, interdependent. From this perspective, the ruins, although at the centre of the square, are not the centre of the square but rather the lens through which I perceive the life around it. What happens with classical music when one refuses, for a moment, to consider its performance traditions, and instead lets it endure the present in new contexts and less protected conditions? It might collapse, like the Collegio, but can its ruins, also like the Collegio’s, enliven and illuminate the landscape that surrounds them?1 

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