Guided Experience

The Pipe Organ Experience: Italian Classics & Cinema Legends

A guided journey through 4,600 pipes — discover how Interstellar, Cinema Paradiso, and the Italian masters come to life inside a 470-year-old church

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4.5

17 Reviews

"Je recommande vivement! Une superbe découverte avec Classicum.it..."
Felix
"Geweldige ervaring Classicum.it..."
Sara
"Sentire dal vivo le colonne sonore di film famosi..."
Alberto
"L'expérience était très intéressante à vivre..."
Traveler
"Amazing, the sound of the pipe organ moves emotions."
Mary
"Eindrucksvolles Konzert..."
Traveler
"Semplicemente bellissimo!"
Luca
"We loved the cinematic masterpieces!"
Traveler
"Mojstrstvo izvajalca!"
Anna

About

This is not a sit-down-and-listen affair. It's a guided journey into one of Milan's best-kept secrets.

Your evening begins the moment you step inside a 470-year-old Franciscan church — a hidden gem steps from Brera that most tourists walk right past. Your host is the assistant organist of Milan Cathedral, who opens the doors to the instrument, walks you through its history, explains how 4,600 pipes actually produce sound, and brings it all to life through music you already know and love.

You'll hear Interstellar's 'No Time for Caution' — the docking scene that made you grip your armrest — thundering through real metal pipes. You'll discover how the Pirates of the Caribbean theme can literally make the floor vibrate through 16-foot bass pedals. You'll experience Cinema Paradiso's love theme floating through acoustics that have been here since 1555.

Between musical demonstrations, your guide reveals secrets of the instrument — how 76 stops create hundreds of different voices, why certain combinations whisper like a flute while others roar like a full orchestra, and how an organist coordinates hands across four keyboards and feet on pedals simultaneously. You'll hear stories of the church itself: Franciscan monks, Napoleonic horse stables, Renaissance masterpieces hiding in plain sight in the side chapels.

The Tamburini organ does things no orchestra can: sustain a note forever, swell from silence to thunder in seconds, and produce vibrations you feel physically in your seat. This is cinema, Italian classics, and five centuries of history as a full-body, multisensory experience. Seventy-five minutes. No intermission. No ordinary evening.

Highlights

  • Discover how 4,600 pipes create the sound of a full orchestra — and feel the difference in your chest
  • Experience Interstellar's docking sequence as a physical phenomenon on a monumental organ
  • Learn why the pipe organ is called 'the king of instruments' — and watch a maestro prove it
  • Feel the floor vibrate during Pirates of the Caribbean's Davy Jones theme on 16-foot bass pedals
  • Hear Cinema Paradiso's love theme inside the same acoustics that have existed since 1555
  • Uncover the hidden history of a 470-year-old Franciscan church — from Renaissance art to Napoleonic stables
  • Watch a maestro coordinate four keyboards, 76 stops, and pedals simultaneously — live, explained, up close

The Journey

What you'll discover, piece by piece

I. ATMOSPHERES

H. Zimmer, arr. A. Lapwood

Cornfield Chase (from Interstellar)

Remember the fields of corn, the dust, the desperate hope? This is that music. The organ sustains the arpeggios indefinitely—something strings can't do—creating hypnotic tension that mirrors the film's sense of infinite time and space.

M.E. Bossi

Chant du Soir, op. 92 n. 1

A palate cleanser from 1908. Bossi was Italy's legendary organist—he actually taught in Milan. Pure late-romantic melancholy. If this were in a movie, it would play during the quiet scene before everything goes wrong.

C. Saint-Saëns, arr. A. Guilmant

The Swan (Le Cygne)

You know this melody even if you don't know you know it—it's been in a hundred films. Usually played on cello, but on the organ the flute stops sing while the deep pedals mimic water rippling beneath.

Marco De Vita
The Artist

Marco De Vita

Assistant Organist of Milan Cathedral

"The pipe organ is the original synthesizer. It can whisper like a flute or hit you like an entire orchestra."

Marco De Vita (born 1997) is one of Italy's rising organists. Since November 2025, he's held the position of Assistant Organist at the Duomo di Milano—one of the most prestigious organ posts in the world.

He's performed at international festivals across Europe and is known for making the organ accessible: blending sacred tradition with film scores that audiences actually recognize.

For this concert, he's arranged many of the pieces himself—adapting orchestral soundtracks for an instrument with 4 keyboards, 76 stops, and pedals you play with your feet.

The Venue Milan

Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angeli (Sant'Angelo)

A hidden Franciscan church just steps from Brera. Bright, peaceful, and packed with Renaissance art in its side chapels. The centerpiece? A massive 1957 Tamburini pipe organ with 4,600 pipes that can whisper or roar—and you'll feel it in your chest either way.

Most Milanese know it as 'Sant'Angelo,' but its official name is Santa Maria degli Angeli—named after the famous Porziuncola church in Assisi by Saint Bernardino of Siena himself when the Franciscans settled here.

The Franciscan story in Milan starts in 1418 when the friars were given a small chapel outside Porta Nuova. By 1436, donations from the faithful allowed them to build a proper church and a convent large enough for 200 monks, set in a wooded park created by Duchess Bianca Maria Sforza.

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