The school’s main activity is organizing advanced courses in the performance practice of singing and ancient instruments.

The following courses are currently active:

• Singing
• Recorder
• Baroque flute
• Harpsichord
• Organ
• Renaissance dance
• Baroque dance
• Baroque cello
• Historical bassoons

Furthermore, in accordance with its statutory purposes, the School promotes and organizes concerts and research activities. Among the festivals are two editions of the International Festival of Early Music (1992 and 1994); the Concertini in famiglia, held weekly from 1997 to 2010 at the Querini Stampalia Museum; and the Musiche dei Grimani (2013–ongoing) at the Palazzo Grimani Museum.

In 1996, the school’s teachers recorded the CD La musica del Tiepolo (music from the time of Giambattista Tiepolo). SMAV published the musical guide Venezia, i luoghi della musica (Venice, the places of music) (1995), edited by Aldo Bova, and I balli di Gaetano Grossatesta (2002), a facsimile of a recently discovered Venetian Baroque dance manuscript.

SMAV promotes exchange projects with other associations and institutions: teachers from the school have held courses as guest teachers at the Conservatories of Zwolle (Netherlands), Potenza, and the Universities of Graz and Pavia-Cremona. SMAV was a partner in the MediMuses project, funded by the European Community.

The current director of the courses is Marco Rosa Salva.

The Location

Thanks to an agreement with the Polo Museale Veneto, signed in 2015—an innovative experiment in public-private collaboration—the School holds its courses in the prestigious Palazzo Grimani Museum in Santa Maria Formosa. Under the agreement, the School contributes to enhancing the Museum, particularly by drawing on the site’s musical importance, which was once the residence of the owners of the major Venetian theaters of the 17th and 18th centuries, through concerts, research activities, and the courses themselves.