Every year at the International School for Advanced Studies, SISSA, in Trieste, the Sciama Memorial Lecture takes place, a conference dedicated to the memory of the great theoretical astrophysicist, Dennis Sciama. This year’s talk: "Sounds of Silence: Listening to the Universe with Gravitational Waves," will be held by Professor Alessandra Buonanno, Director at Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Head of the division Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity at the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany, and one of the key players in the “quest for gravitational waves,” culminating this year with the first direct observation of the elusive astronomical phenomenon. The free conference is open to the public and will be held in English.