VIRGINIA GUASTELLA

Virginia Guastella’s music is born from the encounter between refined composition, the stage, and performative gesture. A composer, pianist, conductor, and producer, she moves across different languages — from opera to symphonic concerts, from silent cinema and audiovisual media to improvisation — guided by a vision that unites formal precision with expressive freedom. Each project thus becomes a space of connection: between sound and image, word and movement, artist and audience.

In 2026 she will make her debut as composer and conductor leading the Toscanini Orchestra in a concert dedicated to the Boulanger sisters, featured among the Foundation’s special projects.

In May 2025 her one-act opera My Name Is Floria — for which she wrote both the music and libretto and produced the electronic tracks — has been premiered at Teatro Ariosto in Reggio Emilia, commissioned by Fondazione I Teatri / Festival Aperto and Reggio Parma Festival, directed by Luigi Noah De Angelis (Fanny & Alexander), Marco Angius conducting the Icarus Ensemble, and Tempo Reale in charge of sound design and live electronics.

In March 2025 she made her debut as an opera conductor at Den Fynske Opera in Odense with Giulietta e Romeo by Nicola Vaccaj, directed by Eva Maria Melbye, intertwining her work as music director and conductor, répétiteur, and Italian language coach.

In 2024 she worked as composer, producer, and pianist on several pieces for the soundtrack of the television series Giacomo Leopardi – Vita e amori del poeta, directed by Sergio Rubini and co-produced by Rai Fiction, IBC Movie, and RaiCom, presented at the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals and broadcast in prime time on RaiUno.

In 2023 she was composer, producer, and pianist in residence for the Xenon Residency, creating an immersive, site-specific sound installation at Huset Theatre in Copenhagen. In the same year she presented at the Cineteca di Bologna her live soundtrack for Paul Leni’s silent film Dornröschen (1917), adapting the music from Respighi’s opera La bella dormiente, with the support of Ricordi and Fondazione Cini. The project of her own conception saw her taking on the dual role of composer and conductor of a six-member ensemble which included four operatic singers.

In 2022 she was composer in residence for Mappe sonore, the contemporary music festival curated by Ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi, which commissioned and premiered her work La dinamica del ghiaccio; Guastella also took part in the festival as pianist. That same year she made her debut at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano under the artistic direction of Mauro Montalbetti, who commissioned L’ombra di un meriggio lontano, an opera for soprano, countertenor, and ensemble on her own libretto inspired by texts by Amelia Rosselli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Dante Alighieri, and Franz Kafka.

Also, in 2022 she founded and directed UOF – Urban Opera Festival, a new format for a festival dedicated to contemporary music theatre, launched in Bologna with the support of DAR – University of Bologna, the Municipality of Bologna, the Emilia-Romagna Region, RoBot Festival, and DumBo.

In 2021 her monodrama Angelica cunta for mezzo-soprano and ensemble premiered at the Nuova Consonanza Festival in Rome, which commissioned the work.

Her music has been performed by institutions and festivals including MITO SettembreMusica Torino/Milano, National Gallery of Art Washington DC, Bard College New York, Eastman School of Music Rochester, Ferrara Musica (chaired by Claudio Abbado), Musique à l’Emperi – Salon de Provence, Teatro Massimo Palermo, Voll Damm Jazz Festival Barcelona, I Pomeriggi Musicali Milano, Sofia Union of Bulgarian Composers, Mittelfest, Puccini Festival Torre del Lago, ORT Firenze / Festival Play It, Ravenna Festival, Elba Festival, Stresa Festival, Sentieri Selvaggi Milano, Nuova Consonanza Roma, and Cineteca di Bologna.

Her works have been broadcast by Rai Radio3, Rai3, Sky Classica HD, ORF Radio Wien, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, France Musique, and RSI Rete Due (Swiss Radio).

She has collaborated with performers and ensembles such as Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Les Vents Français, Hervé Joulain, Yura Lee, Novus String Quartet, Quartetto Prometeo, Tetraktis Percussioni, Orchestra Haydn di Trento e Bolzano, Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali, Ensemble Sentieri Selvaggi, ContempoArtEnsemble, AltreVoci Ensemble, and Icarus Ensemble; and with conductors, directors, and artists including Marco Angius, Carlo Boccadoro, Paolo Fresu, Daniele Abbado, Francesco Micheli, Roberto Prosseda, Gillian B. Anderson, and Stefania Sandrelli.

For nearly a decade, she has been developing the Live Composition project in both academic/educational and concert settings. Blending composition and improvisation, the project is inspired by Butch Morris’ Conduction. It involves musicians from diverse backgrounds, whom she guides in the live creation of sound scores that are never repeated in the same way, transforming the performance space into a place of collective creation and dialogue between artistic languages.

In 2016 her monographic album So Far So Good was released, collecting ten years of original works; in the same year she toured the United States with projects ranging from solo piano to cine-concerts, appearing at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, in Paducah – UNESCO Creative City (Kentucky), and in New York (Spectrum and Bard College).

She took part in European projects dedicated to contemporary opera promoted by the Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, invited by Fabio Vacchi, and in 2017 collaborating with Katie Mitchell between London (Royal Court Theatre) and Aix.

In 2009 she released Slancio moderato, an album produced by RaiCom featuring her original music for the Duo Improbabile project, with Guastella on piano and Claudio Trotta on drums.

With Pax virginis for baritone and orchestra she won the 2008 International Composition Contest «Strumenti di pace» in Rovereto, chaired by Giorgio Battistelli. The piece has been performed by the Haydn Orchestra of Trento and Bolzano conducted by Gustav Kuhn, broadcast live on Rai Radio 3, then again by the same orchestra conducted by Yves Abel and several times by Italian institutions.

Since 2007 she has worked as a composer, producer of original scores, and music consultant for television programs such as La Grande Storia and Correva l’anno (RaiTre and RaiStoria), as well as for major commercial brands.

At the beginning of her career she has collaborated as pianist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Alexander Lonquich for Ferrara Musica, with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna conducted by Daniele Gatti, and with the Cineteca di Bologna in cine-concerts, performing in numerous festivals including Il Cinema Ritrovato (Bologna), Reitschule Bern Film Festival (Bern, Switzerland), and Festival du Cinéma Italien (Annecy, France).

She has also worked as a collaborative pianist with the Orchestra Mozart and Claudio Abbado as a répétiteur and stage assistant in productions such as Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (conducted by Claudio Abbado, staged by Daniele Abbado) and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos (staged by Toni Servillo).

She is Professor of Composition at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Ravenna (Italian Ministry of University and Research) and regularly gives masterclasses and lectures at institutions across Europe and the United States, including ESMUC – Barcelona, Bard College – New York, the University of Bologna, and several Italian conservatories.

Born in Palermo in 1979, she graduated with top honours in Piano at 17 from the A. Scarlatti Conservatory under Enza Vernuccio. At 22 she earned her Diploma in Composition under Adriano Guarnieri at the G. B. Martini Conservatory in Bologna, where she also graduated magna cum laude in Musical Aesthetics at the University of Bologna (DAMS) under Maurizio Giani. She further specialised in Composition with Live Electronics with Guarnieri and Alvise Vidolin, and in Composition with Salvatore Sciarrino at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena; she studied conducting with Piero Bellugi in Florence and privately with Gillian B. Anderson; and completed her piano training through masterclasses with Aquiles Delle Vigne and Boris Petrushansky.

She also attended the Berklee College of Music Clinics at Umbria Jazz in 1994 and 1999, receiving a special mention in Recognition of her Outstanding Musicianship.

She continues to pursue an open and interdisciplinary artistic path.