A music festival in Italy founded by a Kansas University doctoral student and co-sponsored by KU’s music and dance department has grown so popular that it will relocate and revise its focus in 2008.

Nathanael May, doctoral student in piano who has taught and performed abroad, has renamed the festival formerly known as the Cortona Contemporary Music Festival to “soundSCAPE,” with SCAPE standing for Sound, Composition and Performance Exchange. The “soundSCAPE” festival will be relocated from Cortona to Pavia, Italy, south of Milan. May said the attendance and scope of the original festival had outgrown the Cortona site.

In 2008, the festival will be in the Istituto di musica Vittadini, which is housed in a 16th-century building featuring a newly renovated 350-seat concert hall as well as ample teaching and practice facilities.

The next festival is set for July 15-25, 2008. The event also is sponsored by the Biquadro Cultural Association of Pavia.

The mission of “soundSCAPE” is to facilitate the exchange of new music, ideas and culture between new musicians and composers.