Prof.in Dr. Stefania Neonato

Born in Trento, Italy, Stefania Neonato belongs to a generation of artists busy with historical performance practices on period instruments but also interested in bridging modern piano performance tradition and current historical research.

Landmarks in Neonato’s career are the encounters with Alexander Lonquich, Riccardo Zadra and Malcolm Bilson with whom she earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Historical Performance Practice at Cornell University.

In 2007 she got top prize and Audience Prize at the International Fortepiano Competition “Musica Antiqua” in Bruges. From then on she is guest at some of the most important early music festivals and concert seasons in Europe and USA (Van Vlaanderen in Bruges, Styriarte in Graz, Festival Mozart in Rovereto, KlaraFestival in Bruxelles, Festival Alte Musik  Knechtsteden, Boston-Early Music Festival, Kölner Fest für alte Musik, Regensburg-Tage Alter Musik, Potsdam Festspiele, Münster-Erbdrostenhof, Bologna-Accademia Filarmonica, Brescia-Teatro Grande, Florence-Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori, Amici della Musica di Padova, Genoa - Giovine Orchestra Genovese, Madrid-Fundacion Juan March, Cornell Concert Series, Boston-Tufts University, Rome - Oratorio del Gonfalone, Vienna - Musikverein, Zagreb - Cristoforium, Lisbon - Noites de Queluz, Berlin - Alte Musik Live, Duisburger Philharmoniker – Duisburg, Haus der Musik Fruchtkasten – Stuttgart etc.).

In 2013 she was appointed Professor of historical pianos at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, Germany.

Active as pedagogue in international masterclasses, she published for “Early Music” (Oxford Journals), “Keyboard Perspectives” (Westfield Center) and Mimesis Edition (Milan), presenting her research on piano aesthetics at several conferences around the globe.

Her repertoire ranges from Classicism to the 20th century; several recordings mark Stefania Neonato’s career featuring solo (Mozart, Haydn, Clementi, Beethoven, Alkan) and chamber music on period pianos (Schubert, Beethoven, von Weber, Hummel). In 2024 Beethoven Violin-Sonaten with Christine Busch will be published for SWR Label.

In 2012 and 2016 she was invited in the jury of the two first editions of the International Fortepiano Competition “Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari” in Rovereto, Italy.

In 2018 she premiered and published Piano Music by G. G. Ferrari for Brilliant Classics.