“Franci did everything in his power to find a shared solution that would hold together the needs of the Conservatory with those of the Enea Piccolomini Comprehensive Institute. Each step of this path has been conceived and carried out with the interests of all students in the foreground. We hope that we can soon get out of the current one impasse, but we believe that further adjustments on the institution’s activity, which would affect the quality of training, are not to be taken into consideration ”. Thus begins the note of the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali ‘Rinaldo Franci’ which intervenes on the question of the use of the premises in Piazza Sant’Agostino, where the Conservatory is located.

“On the possible co-management of spaces with Piccolomini – continues the note – we have never proposed other classrooms than those examined by the ASL in recent days, because it is impossible. The few larger classrooms are necessary for the profitable and functional development of the training activity that includes teaching and production, which makes it equally necessary and indispensable to carry out these activities within the same architectural structure. Many instruments, including some historical ones, cannot coexist with a secondary school class and cannot be moved daily, morning and afternoon, from one space to another. A hypothesis that would require, among other things, specialized transport to avoid damaging them. The individual and group lessons, moreover, take place at the same time and the number of hours of each teacher is developed for this purpose throughout the day. Compressing all training needs only in the afternoons would lead to an appearance of the entire teaching organization, an ineffective training action and, ultimately, the loss of students and enrollments. The availability of larger spaces only in the afternoon, moreover, lead to having to give up, for logistical and economic reasons, to masterclasses with international level artists. Those who support the hypothesis of mobilizing Franci, for example in Montarioso, or of removing other classrooms from morning activities do not know how the teaching of the Institute is carried out ”.

The risk of losing statization. “The persistence of this situation – continues the note – risks compromising the statization process, started for years, which would transform Franci into a state entity, increasing its prestige and opportunities. Meanwhile, the State has already paid to Franci, in 2020, about 2 million and 700 thousand euros, compared to the total income of the Institute which is about 3 million and 300 thousand euros: a contribution equal to 81 percent of the total. In order for this step to materialize the legislation that local authorities continue to ensure the free use of the premises of the office. At the time of the request for statization, in 2019, the Mayor confirmed the availability of maintaining the free use of the current spaces even beyond the natural expiry of the concession scheduled for 2039. In 2019 the needs of Piccolomini were already known, but it seems that only today the administration is interested in the fate of the students of the institute, of provincial competence, without worrying about those of the Conservatory. We benefit from finding, as soon as possible, a solution also because times are very tight and Siena does not deserve to lose this fundamental opportunity for the growth of the musical center and of the entire cultural sector of the city ”.