Focus − Insegnare Storia della musica: Università, Conservatorio, Scuole

Lorenzo Bianconi; Michele Calella; Donatella Restani; Alessandro Roccatagliati; Antonio Caroccia; Luisa La Guardia

doi:10.60923/issn.2039-9715/23525

Authors

Lorenzo Bianconi University of Bologna

Lorenzo Bianconi taught musical dramaturgy at the University of Bologna for forty years. He collaborated on the project and creation of the Bologna Music Museum and was co-editor of the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Biographical Dictionary of Italians) from 2012 to 2020. His work has focused on the history of musical drama, libretti, and poetry for music. His volume Seicento, which is part of the “Storia della Musica” published by EDT, has been translated into Spanish and English, with a French translation currently in progress. He is the co-editor of the critical edition of Francesco Cavalli’s works (Bärenreiter, 2012 onwards). He is a corresponding member of various Italian and foreign academies, including the Accademia dei Lincei. In 1993, he was one of the founders of the periodical and association «Il Saggiatore Musicale».
Michele Calella University of Vienna

Michele Calella is a professor of historical musicology at the University of Vienna. He studied at the universities of Pavia/Cremona, Regensburg, and Münster, obtaining his PhD in 1997 with a thesis on tragédie lyrique at the end of the Ancien Régime. He then worked as an assistant at the universities of Marburg and Zurich, qualifying with a thesis on the concept of authorship in late Medieval and Renaissance music. In 2004, he received the Hermann Abert Prize from the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, and in 2020, he was awarded the Westrup Prize from the Music & Letters Foundation. He is currently researching Italian opera in 18th-century Vienna, Franz Liszt in Weimar, and methodological issues in musicology. His latest monograph, Musikwissenschaft. Eine Einführung, published by Laaber in 2024, is an introduction to the methods of musicology.
Donatella Restani University of Bologna
Donatella Restani is a full professor of musicology and music history at the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Bologna. She has published around ninety works, including: L'itinerario di Girolamo Mei (1990), Musica e mito nella Grecia antica (1995), Musica per governare (2004), and Etnomusicologia storica del mondo antico (2006). She is one of the co-founders of the International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage (MOISA). She is also a member of national (PRIN 2022 MUSE) and international (RIMAnt) research groups, and sits on the editorial boards of journals such as “Greek and Roman Musical Studies”, “Itineraria”, and the recent “Il Patrimonio Musicale”. Having served the academic community at national, university and departmental levels for twenty-five years, she currently coordinates the PhD programme in Cultural and Environmental Heritage.
Alessandro Roccatagliati University of Ferrara

Alessandro Roccatagliati is a full professor at the University of Ferrara and heads the Scientific Committee of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani, as well as editing the journal «Studi verdiani». He co-edits the critical edition of Vincenzo Bellini’s works and the journal «Il Saggiatore Musicale». Within the AFAM (PNRR 2025–26) projects, he is the scientific director of the research projects “Music Theatre and New Technologies” and “Conoscete Achille Peri?”. He is also a member of the scientific committees of: Works of Giuseppe Verdi; Edizione critica delle opere di Gaetano Donizetti; and the Documentation Centre of the Bellini Foundation. His publications include: “Rigoletto” di Giuseppe Verdi (1991); Felice Romani librettista (1996); the critical edition of Bellini’s La Sonnambula (2009); and the handbook Musica e società. II: Dal 1640 al 1830 (2019).
Antonio Caroccia “Santa Cecilia” Conservatory of Music, Rome

Antonio Caroccia holds a PhD in the History, Science and Techniques of Music, and is a full professor of Musicology and Music History at the “Santa Cecilia” Conservatory of Music. He coordinates the PhD programme in the Science and Culture of Musical Heritage (cycles XL and XLI), as well as the Conservatory’s musicological activities. He is an advisor to the CNAM and a member of the MIM-MUR and CNAM-CUN commissions. He is also an ANVUR evaluator and president of ANDA (Association of AFAM Teachers). He is also a member of the Ministry of Culture’s national editions of Commedie per Musica di Domenico Cimarosa and Opere di Antonio Salieri. He has authored numerous studies on the history of music between the 17th and 20th centuries, as well as on music didactics. He combines scientific, institutional and educational work, with a particular focus on issues in the history of education and the protection, enhancement and transmission of Italian musical heritage.
Luisa La Guardia Bologna

Luisa La Guardia is a DAMS graduate and diploma holder from the Conservatories of Bologna and Rovigo. She has twenty years’ experience teaching music in lower secondary schools in Bologna, following ten years of teaching in primary schools. Both her teaching and her academic research reflect her commitment to combining tradition and innovation, particularly with regard to active learning methodologies. Having obtained a Master’s degree in Leadership and Strategic Management of Schools, she is currently a principal awaiting assignment. In the meantime, she continues to teach with passion, inspired by the pedagogy of music history.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.2039-9715/23525

Keywords:

Music History , Teaching of Music History , University, Conservatory , School

Abstract

On 30 October 2024, SagGEM – the music education group of the association «Il Saggiatore Musicale» – will devote its annual meeting to the topic of “Teaching Music History: Universities, Conservatories, Schools”. Held at the auditorium of the Opificio Golinelli in Bologna, the meeting featured speakers Luca Aversano, Lorenzo Bianconi, Michele Calella, Donatella Restani and Alessandro Roccatagliati, as well as discussants Antonio Caroccia and Luisa La Guardia.
Juan José Carreras’s introduction, On the Necessity of Music Historiography, drew attention to a crucial issue: while music historiography has been in a state of perpetual crisis since the 1970s as part of a broader reflection on history and the humanities, this very crisis reinforces the need to reaffirm the value of history, historical consciousness, and the pursuit of new historiographical approaches and communication strategies. Luca Aversano, President of the Association of Italian University Music Teachers, echoed this sentiment in his contribution, Legitimising the Teaching of Music History in the Contemporary World: the Role of Universities, reiterating the urgent need to foster a genuine and deep interest in music history among younger generations.
The issues at hand were addressed from different institutional perspectives, with contributions from schools, conservatoires, and universities. We are grateful to the authors who have made their texts available and we present here the work of Lorenzo Bianconi, Michele Calella, Donatella Restani and Alessandro Roccatagliati, together with short contributions from Antonio Caroccia and Luisa La Guardia.

Focus − Teaching Music History. Universities, Conservatoires and Schools

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