Isabella Summers
To Neptune, Ruler of the Seas Profound
Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome
Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio
Ph. Valerio Polici
The musical project To Neptune, Ruler of the Seas Profound was conceived in a little red room in Soho district in London by the musician Isabella Summers and Tatiana Cheneviere, curator of the project. Surrounded by the catalogues featuring the works by Cy Twombly and poetry books, they both wonder “How would the sea, a storm or a battle sound, as depicted by the artist in his works? How can we make the signs in his works resonate and allow them to take on new forms through sound and poetry?”
Following Cy Twombly’s life chronologically and taking inspiration from his most celebrated works, Isabella Summers writes a personal story about them in fragments, through recordings and quotations from poems, just as Twombly used to annotate and cite in his works fragments from poetry of which he was fond.
Cy Twombly's handwritten note (from the poem The Soul has Bandaged moments by Emily Dickinson)
Inscribed on the painting Untitled (Roses), 2008, by the artist
Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio
The project, composed and recorded in 2019, was presented the same year for the first time at Gagosian in London where the audience was invited to visit the exhibition Cy Twombly: Sculpture for one night while listening the musical piece on headphones. Later in May 2022 Isabella Summers was invited by the Cy Twombly Foundation and the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio to perform her piece live with PMCE- Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble and the producer Jared Laville at the FNDR space in Rome on the occasion of the first edition of the project Un/veiled. Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations, curated by Nicola Del Roscio and Eleonora Di Erasmo. The composition was further expanded for a second live performance on the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly at the Gagosian in Los Angeles in December 2022.
Isabella Summers
To Neptune, Ruler of the Seas Profound
Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome
May 27th, 2022
with Jared Laville and PMCE- Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble (Fiorela Asqueriu, Andrea Di Mario, Diego Di Paolo, Filippo Fattorini, Luca Nostro, Flavio Tanzi, Marco Venturi)
Video: David Fricano
The audio conversation between Isabella Summers and Tatiana Cheneviere will take us on a journey to discover the origin of the musical project dedicated to Cy Twombly and the various stages of its development and creative process.
The podcast is also available on Podbean
© Isabella Summers © Tatiana Cheneviere
The full transcription of the conversation can be downloaded here.
Cy Twombly, Nini's Painting, 1971
[Rome]
Oil based house paint, oil paint, wax crayon, pencil on canvas
102 3/4 x 118 1/8 in.
Kunstmuseum Basel
© Cy Twombly Foundation
Isabella “The Machine” Summers is an English Emmy-nominated film composer, songwriter/producer and musician. She is best known as the architect of the sound of the 6x Grammy nominated indie rock band Florence and the Machine and spent 14 years writing, producing, touring, and composing her cinematic sound before making the jump from pop music to composing for film and television.
After her official introduction to scoring via Sam Levinson’s Assassination Nation, Summers earned an Emmy nomination for her work on Liz Tigelaar’s Hulu Series Little Fires Everywhere and went on score 60+ episodes of television in three years including: Physical and Strange Planet for Apple TV+, the series Panic for Amazon Prime, Sex/Life for Netflix, and The Offer for Paramount+.
Summers has scored studio-features and indies alike: from Lisa Frankenstein directed by Zelda Williams and written by Diablo Cody for Universal/ Focus Features, to Netflix’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Call Jane which premiered at Sundance Film Festival (2021). After this summer’s release of the buzzy Jeff Goldblum Netflix series Kaos starring Debi Mazar, Isa wrote music for Lionsgate’s thriller Dust Bunny starring Sigourney Weaver, Pete Ohs’ Erupcja starring Charlie XCX, Netflix’s romcom My Oxford Year, Aniventure’s HitPig, Neal Street Productions’ The Magic Faraway Tree starring Andrew Garfield, and Warner Brothers’ tentpole animated feature Bad Fairies.
When not scoring for film and television, as a producer and remixer, Summers has collaborated with the likes of Beyonce, Judith Hill, Juliette Lewis and LP. She is also working on her debut solo album.
Tatiana Cheneviere is the founder of London contemporary art gallery, Pipeline (est. 2022). Previously she worked for nearly a decade at Gagosian.
In 2025, Cheneviere co-founded Black+Cheneviere, a new-generation art consultancy firm focused on collection building and patronage equally.
She is a champion of cross-regional collaboration, working with artists and programming with institutions within and beyond the capital including The National Gallery, London and Castelfield Gallery, Manchester.