People

Institutions and Projects

Here you’ll find our partner institutions, associated projects, befriended voice Centers, and organizations we have encountered in our research.

Artists, Researchers, Educators, and Team

An overview of the Center’s voices, arranged alphabetically.

Agnese Banti

Sound artist, musician and overtone singer, originally from a valley of northern Tuscany and roomer in different places of the Mediterranean area, she is actually based in Bologna, working with sound in music, performances, installations and audiovisuals. With a colourful path of studies (in humanities, design and communication, electronic music and sound design) and a multidirectional interest in sound and music, her activity has always been gravitating around many points of attraction: such as choral music, soundscape studies, traditional folk music repertoires, space composition and the collaborative dimension of making music. One of the things that fascinated her the most in recent years is the research made around a sound installation project on frog voices and ancient ruins that she realised between the Electronic Music School of Bologna and the Ionian University of Corfu for her master’s degree. She collaborates with Tempo Reale, the esteemed centre for musical research, production and education in Florence founded by Luciano Berio and she works on overtones singing projects with the Italian composer Roberto Laneri. She’s the creator of the intimate music project The Songbook and the co-founder of the electronic music collective born in the Conservatory of Bologna (2018-2021). Recently she collaborated with the choreographer Marta Bellu in “I versi delle mani” and she attended Malagola, the School of vocality and international centre for voice studies based in Ravenna. In 2023, thanks to the support for artistic research from FONDO – Network for Emerging Creativity, she dedicated herself to the project “Speaking cables, choreographic device for voice, cables and loudspeakers”, in collaboration with the sound designer and computer musician Andrea Trona. Her works have been performed in Italy, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, the UK and the US. She collects music tapes and spinning tops in order to “play” them all.

Lucia Amara

Lucia Amara works and lives in Bologna. Her research focuses on vocality, on performative languages and on some irregular forms of literary languages. Lucia Amara is a scenic art theorist who is particularly interested in experimenting between theory and practice. With a background in classical literature, semiology, performing arts and post-doctoral research (DAMS Bologna, University of Florence, Paris VII with Julia Kristeva, Ecole des Hautes Etudes with Georges Didi-Huberman, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) she carried out research on ancient democracy, the physics of movement, glossolalie, gambling, the archives of speech and voice. She has written essays on Artaud, De Certeau, Wolfson, Deligny. In 2005 she was among the critics called by Romeo Castellucci to the Venice Biennale Teatro. She has collaborated on theatre magazines Art’o, Culture Teatrali, Doppiozero, and contributed to F.I.S.Co. and Live Arts Week books (Xing). She is the Italian translator of Antonin Artaud. Publications: Antonin Artaud (trans.), Questo corpo è un uomo: Quaderni 1945-1948 (Neri Pozza Editore, 2025). Teatro Infantile. L’arte scenica davanti agli occhi di un bambino (Luca Sossella, 2019) with Chiara Guidi; Utopie Vocali, on the phenomenon of glossolalia observed by Michel De Certau, Paolo Fabbri and William Samarin (Mimesis, 2015); Loveeee - Journal (Xing, 2012) with choreographer Cristina Rizzo; Overground by photographer Luca Del Pia (Boiler, 2011); Kinkaleri 2001-2008. La scena esausta (Ubulibri, 2008); Calcolo dei Dadi: azzardo e vita quotidiana by Marco Dotti (O Barra O, 2013). She has collaborated with performance artists Cristina Rizzo (Jungle In, Dance N ° 3, Loveeeee), Kinkaleri (I AM THAT AM I, TU DICI?, Certo Titolo), Claudia Triozzi (Pour une thèse vivant), Michele Di Stefano/MK, Societas Raffaello Sanzio. She has taught Theory and Practice of Performance at the Free University of Bolzano, and has been teaching Drastic Art for some years at the Scuola Conia, directed by Claudia Castellucci.

Nieszka Bogusławska

Somatic psychotherapist trained in the Bodynamic® method, dance artist, educator, researcher, and founder of the Nurt Foundation. She is currently training in the Body-Mind Centering® approach within the Somatic Movement Educator and Practitioner certification program. As an artist, she works with socially engaged art, dance improvisation, ecosomatics, site-specific performance, and collaborates on interdisciplinary and research-based projects.

Jacopo Cenni

Born in 1995, Jacopo Cenni is a composer and live performer. The relationship with technology is a crucial point of his artistic activity: through Computer Music and CAC techniques, Cenni creates organic and immersive sound constructs. His research on the gestural dimension in the practice of live electronics, carried out at the Conservatory of Trento, culminated in the sound theater work HUNT (2022), which debuted at Biennale Musica 2022 and with which he graduated in Electronic Music with the highest honors. More recently, he has been specifically interested in the relationship between choreography and music, taking part in multidisciplinary projects in contexts such as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (FR) and the GRADUS residency of the Reggio Parma Festival (IT). His works have been presented in events such as La Biennale di Venezia (IT), Glasgow Science Center (UK), Festival Accademia Chigiana (IT), ZiMMT (DE), Fondazione Luigi Nono (IT), and others.

Meike Clarelli

Singer, composer, choir director, vocal researcher, and music therapist. She studied contemporary music and jazz at the Frescobaldi Conservatory of Ferrara. She studied voice and vocal pedagogy with Imke McMurtrie in Germany. In 2024, she graduated as a Psychophonetic Music Therapist from the International Academy of Psychophony, Mantova. Since 2009, she has been the founder and director of the women’s choir “Le chemin des Femmes” as part of the Amigdala Collective, and since 2016, she has directed the women’s choir in Bologna called Le Core (Jaya Association). She released five albums as singer and songwriter with the musical group La Metralli (Ciampi Award 2012 and selected for the Tenco Award in 2014). Since 2016, she has been a composer and multi-instrumentalist for the electronic project Dueventi. Since 2014, she has been part of the Amigdala Collective, producing vocal installations and performances such as Elementare, KIN, and MAGNITUDO. From 2011 to present, she has released 12 recordings of original musical projects, choral works, and performances for various labels, including the British Audio Network. Since 2018, she has collaborated internationally with artist Claudia Losi on the production and creation of musical and vocal performances, including two albums: “Voce a vento” (Cilento, NA) and “Being There” (Birmingham, UK). Since 2023, she has been a voice teacher at the Iolanda Gazzero School of Advanced Training for Actors of Emilia Romagna Theatre. She worked with Argentine director Lola Arias as composer and choir director for international productions of “Lingua Madre” at Emilia Romagna Theatre in Bologna, Italy, the National Drama Center in Madrid, Spain, and the Gorki Theater in Berlin, Germany (“Mother Tongue”). Also in 2023, she began collaborating as vocal coach for dancers and stage music composer with choreographer Simona Bertozzi for the production of Athletes.

Giuditta de Concini

An accomplished dancer and instructor, Giuditta de Concini began her study of contemporary dance in 1996 under the guidance of Roberta Zerbini (SeleneCentro Studi, EkoDanza - Bologna). She further explored Graham, Laban, Limon, Cunningham, and release techniques with Georges Gatecluod Dit Bellecroix (Centre de dance du Marais - Paris) and Richard Haisma (Laban Institute - New York). Between 1999 and 2001, she studied contemporary dance with Nicola Laudati and Simona Bertozzi (new dance, release technique, floor work - Bologna), attended intensive workshops on the use of voice held by Sabina Meyer, and participated in Rom Ciceko dance workshops led by Afrim and Dulfadhana Beijzaku. In 2002, she began studying Bharatanāṭyam with Nuria Sala Grau. She deepened her study with Indian masters K. Mohan, Pramila and H. Hariharan, C.K. Balagopalan, P.T. Narendran, Meena Raman, Win Thang, C.V Chandrashekar, Sangeeta Ishvaran, Shantala Shivalingappa, Hema Bharati Palani, and especially Smt. Leela Samson, through workshops and stays in both India and Italy. Since 2005, she has combined the study of Bharatanāṭyam with the practice of Hatha yoga and Kundalini yoga. She regularly practices Tai Chi under the patient guidance of Denise Vallo, with intensive workshops led by Shrfu Edward Coughlin. Since 2007, she has combined teaching Bharatanāṭyam with performing. Since 2009, she has regularly collaborated with the Department of Music and Performing Arts at the University of Bologna, where she annually conducts lecture-performances on South Indian dance theater. Since 2011, she has been a student of Smt. Priyadarsini Govind. From 2009 to 2012, she led the activities of Associazione Culturale Mudra (Bologna), organizing courses, events, seminars, and performances related to Indian culture, with internationally renowned professionals and students. Since 2012, she has continued this activity with Associazione Culturale Jaya. Among her most important artistic and human collaborations are those with dancers and teachers Apoorva Jayaraman, Haru Kugo, Marianna Biadene, Sufi dancer and musician Dhamal Ayub Noor Muhammad, and Sutradhari Monica Gallarate. Giuditta is a co-founder of Collettiva Dhuni, a feminist performance ensemble.

Chiara Cortez

Songwriter and vocal performer, vocal improviser, circlesing facilitator, and aspiring ‘giraffe’ of Nonviolent Communication. Chiara is co-founder of the “Circlesinging Roma” initiative, the first open circling community in the Italian capital, active since 2015, and of the improvised performance project VOPP (Vocal Open Portal Project). She participates in various initiatives around the vocal improvisation network, and is among the members who started the network ‘The Well’. Website.

Federica D’Aversa

Federica D’Aversa is a dancer and performer born in 1992. In 2021, she graduated in contemporary dance from the Civica Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi. In 2022, she emerged as a performer in Michele Ifigenia/Tyche’s projects, distinguishing herself with her interpretation in “CUMA,” which has accumulated over 20 performances since 2022, along with various awards and recognitions including Vetrina d’Autore 2023 and CAM CAM 2022. She has danced in national and international works by established choreographers such as Elie Tass, Cédric Charron, and Annabelle Chambòn and continues her productive, multi-year collaboration with Ariella Vidach and with Simona Bertozzi (The self is a dancer, Athletes, Palestriti new production). Her continuously evolving career sees her as an interpreter of works ranging from contemporary dance, performance, choreographic research, and authorial work. Her debut as an author is with “Architomia,” a project that explores fragmentation and regeneration through the interaction of body, sound, and light.

Vittoria Totale

A curator, voice artist and writer, she works at the intersection of music, contemporary art and language, with a particular interest in creating performative and imaginative open-source spaces. Vittoria’s DJ sets are part of an ongoing research of voice in sound and voice as sound, ranging from vernacular, classical, to contemporary explorations. Totale has long been part of Threes Productions and Terraforma and is part of the curatorial team of CIRCA. She released the gggglllloooossssaaaa album on Villa Lontana Records, probing the realms of voice and sound and their role as catalysts of untamed narratives.

Sun Elmi

They describe themselves as a person in movement, in connection and in constant transformation. Half chameleonic, half shape-shifter. What gives them stability and center is the sense of community, collective care and constancy they put into their practices. They are currently working as a holistic caregiver, massage therapist, facilitator, and performer. Embodiment Background: since 2006 has been moving and relating to space with contemporary dance, contact improvisation, acroyoga, kendo, physical theater and house dance. Academic Background: graduates as a Social and Cultural Educator (UniBo, Bologna) and continues their academic studies in Applied Psychology (Netherlands, 2023) with which they end their frontal studies to devote themselves exclusively to their work in non-formal education. They approached Playfight in 2018 at the Catfarm ecovillage in the South of France (where they lived for a year) and then began facilitating and bringing it to a wide variety of contexts. They have facilitated several workshops, labs and moving practice retreats around Europe with Erasmus+ before returning to Italy in 2025 to bring a more holistic view at mental and physical health practices. They envisions playfight as a form of expressive freedom, both artistic and emotional, while they see dance as a form of (self)discovery and transformation. Some of the pillars that guide their explorations are connection, care and playfulness.

Simone Grande

Simone Grande is an Italian musician and composer. He operates in Bologna in the field of experimentation through the study and exploration of classical and electroacoustic repertoire; these become the main tools for creating instruments and structures for live performance, improvisation, and fixed media music. He has collaborated with various contemporary scenes in Italy, also in the field of dance for live music and fixed media music. He has worked in various important experimental music scenes in Italy, such as “Tempo Reale” in Florence and “Teatro San Leonardo,” the venue hosting the Angelica Festival. Currently, he teaches at the popular music school “Ivan Illich” in Bologna. He has collaborated and performed with artists such as Alvin Curran, Motus Ensemble, Elio Martusciello, Walter Zanetti, Damiano Meacci, Lelio Camilleri, Francesco Giomi, Giorgio Magnanensi, Maurizio Pisati, Alessandro Sbordoni, Jari Boldrini, Giulio Petrucci, Virgilio Sieni, Christian Wolff, Julien Desprez.

Giulia Ledda

Actress and musician since 2007 in Italy and abroad. Master in Applied Theatre, with a focus on the internal rhythms and musicality of the body. She has been working in Brussels since 2017 as a director, stage musician, singer, actor, performer, in artistic and social cohesion projects. Trained in Traditional Healing Practices with Sound and Voice at P. M. Cook’s Open Ear Center, she further develops her links between the many facets of rhythmic experience and presence in the Rhythms and Rhythmics section of the Brussels Conservatory. Member of the vocal improvisation collective Labophonique in Brussels, she is the creator of the Circlesongs & vocal improvisation practice space ALL YOU NEED IS FLOW at the Brussels Conservatory. Website.

Alice Norma Lombardi

Alice Norma Lombardi is a singer, born in 1991 in Conegliano(TV). She obtained a bachelor degree in opera singing in 2015 at the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali “Vecchi-Tonelli” of Modena under the guidance of Marina Comparato, William Matteuzzi, and then continued her studies with Donatella Debolini in Florence. She deepens her studies in Renaissance polyphony and Baroque repertoire and then devotes herself to vocal research, especially in the context of contemporary music, with an eye open to any other genre of music. As a soloist and in ensemble she sang for various national Baroque and contemporary music festivals, she has collaborated with ancient and contemporary music ensembles, with Australian composer Anthony Pateras, with composer Maria W Horn, with guitarist and composer Stefano Pilia among others.

Thollem McDonas

Thollem is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, improviser, singer-songwriter, activist, author and teacher. He has toured throughout North America and Europe as an itinerant artist for two decades, performing, teaching and collaborating in myriad situations across the idiomatic spectrum. Thollem’s known in concentric circles as an acoustic piano player in the free jazz and post-classical worlds, as the lead vocalist for the Italian agit-punk band Tsigoti, and as an electronic keyboardist through a multitude of projects. His lifelong interest has been to work with people from all walks of life, bringing artists and communities together in ways that may create something uniquely valuable to everyone involved. He is currently focused primarily on his multimedia collaboration with New Mexican visual artist ACVilla, his solo piano work Infinite-Sum Game, and workshops on the collaborative process. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Thollem began playing the piano, composing and improvising as a child, absorbing the sounds of his culturally diverse upbringing. As an adult he has continued to incorporate the breadth of musics he has experienced on his extensive travels. Since 2005, he has played over 3,000 concerts throughout N. America and Europe, releasing more than 100 albums on 26 different vanguard labels. A very brief cross section of his many collaborators include William Parker, Pauline Oliveros, Stefano Scodanibbio, Nels Cline, Sara Lund, Rob Mazurek, Michael Wimberly, Mike Watt and Carmina Escobar. Thollem is a published author about art, politics and his travels in NewMusic Box, The Anthology of Essays On Deep Listening, Full Moon Magazine (Prague) and First American Art Magazine.

Emma Manghi

Project Designer, educator, and performer, her artistic and professional path is driven by a passion for performing arts and their exploration as an educational and connecting tool. In 2012 she approached the performing arts under the guidance of Ilaria Gerbella and Loredana Scianna, discovering a creative universe where body and movement become vehicles of expression and discovery. In 2017 she directed and produced Nocletedò, a performance that explores the relationship with disability as a means to understand the world from alternative perspectives. This project represents a milestone in her career, allowing her to combine art with an inclusive and reflective approach. She co-founded the association Alia, active in Bologna in making corporeal and artistic practices accessible. Over the years, she has deepened her skills through participation in numerous masterclasses, including contact improvisation, which have allowed her to enrich her artistic language and refine expressive techniques. Simultaneously, she has integrated this artistic experience with her training as an educator, focusing on the use of performing arts as an artistic mediator. This combination of education and art allows her to create paths that promote dialogue, inclusion, and personal growth through creative experience, adapting the proposal to the participants rather than the other way around.

Eugenia Marzi

Curious about stories, legends, songs, and lullabies, and about what the oral tradition has left behind, such as sounds and words, Eugenia Marzi has always been connected to polyphonic singing. She has sung in numerous choirs, from France to Brazil to Bentivoglio together with the Mondine. Graduated in Literature with a thesis on folk singing in the Apennines, today she works in outdoor education and continues to study music, bringing it into the many spheres of life.

Giulia Matteucci

Singer, vocal improviser, circle singing facilitator and community builder. Her research commitment encourages the development of vocality in the artistic field and well-being through music. Founder of “Circlesinging Bologna”: artistic and community project through which she promotes activities related to art forms such as circle songs and Collaborative Vocal Improvisation in Italy and Europe. She is the creator and promoter of the annual collaborative vocal improvisation course “Canto Improvvisato” active in Bologna since 2020 and in Ravenna. Giulia is one of the founding members of Collettivo Cantincerchio Italia. Website.

Federico Nardella

He conducts his musical and artistic research in the field of hyper-amplification of inaudible sounds. The exploration of silence is used as a pretext to investigate noise, forcing attention on the invisible and forgotten sonic universe of everyday life. In his compositions, minute elements interact with each other in the sound space, creating unstable scenarios often interspersed with long moments of silence. He has numerous records and collaborations to his credit, including various soundtracks for Italian and international films. He is the curator of Ek Dam, a series of electroacoustic improvisation performances. Hissed Syntax is his first entirely acoustic project.

NicoNote

NicoNote is an alias created by Nicoletta Magalotti (I/A) in 1996, an artist active in the fields of music, theatre, art installations, radio and beyond. A researcher equally attuned to the club and the theatre, NicoNote is engaged in sound art and performance as well as storytelling and dramaturgy, and has amassed an extensive discography. From 1984 to 1988, she was the voice of Violet Eves, a band that played a prominent role in Italian new wave. She has collaborated with musicians including Enrico Gabrielli, Stefano Pilia, DJ Rocca, Wang Inc, Elisabeth Harnik, Howie B, Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop and more, and has worked with several directors including Romeo Castellucci / Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, Patricia Allio, Maurizio Fiume, Fabrizio Arcuri, Francesco Micheli, Luca Scarlini and Silvia Costa. In the 90s, together with DJ David Love Calò, she created Morphine in Cocoricò, the first Italian chill-out room, a place of radical musical and performative experimentation. She has toured internationally and her output has been released on labels including Rizosfera, Rough Trade, Music from Memory, Mille Plateaux, DSPPR, and Cinedelic. She conducts vocal masterclasses regularly and works with venues and institutions including Tempo Reale, Florence and Scuola Holden Turin. NicoNote recently contributed to the experimental music theatre production Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight, based on Ursula K. Le Guin’s eponymous utopian fable. Directed by Silvia Costa. Featuring music by the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop ensemble alongside composers Andrea Belfi & Wojtek Blecharz. Performed over three nights at Radialsystem, Berlin. REGOLA is her last release, a concept album, a suite in nine movements inspired by the mythic medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179. Vinyl and digital on New Interplanetary Melodies / Big Doings, limited edition. Syntonic is her monthly show on Radio Raheem.

Daphne Nisi Mete

Roman singer, composer and performer, she is an artist characterized by a strong vocal and musical versatility. She approaches vocal improvisation by studying with mentors from around the world and in turn holding workshops to develop and unleash extemporaneous competitive skills and build connections between people through music. Co-founder of “Circle Singing Roma”, a vocal improvisation community that she has led with Chiara Cortez since 2015. Founder together with director Marzia Mete of “Samesamefactory” which was born as an artistic collective and transformed into a cultural association that deals with social integration through the art. Website.

Emanuela Sforza

A woman and artist originally from Serra de’ Conti and adopted by Bologna, Emanuela Sforza has always carried within her an inexhaustible passion for photography, which she develops in a completely personal journey since, in the second half of the 1970s, she discovers the allure of dance, which will become one of the fundamental points of her research. By observing and studying the construction of ballet, the theatrical space, the play of light and shadow, Sforza captures the moment in which sinuous bodies move, focusing particularly on the expression of the human being and portraying them in their environment, to know, understand, and appropriate, and then return to us, their inner emotionality, in a play characterized by exceptional contrasts of black and white. Sforza’s artistic research starts from dance and then turns her gaze to the theater, enters the studios of artists, and focuses on portraits of working women. Her photographs are exclusively black and white shots that she personally develops, spending hours and hours in the darkroom, until the soul of the image evolves as she herself desires. The artist has to her credit over a hundred exhibitions of national and international importance, awards, prizes, and publications.

Pietro Trallori

Sound designer, performer, and trumpeter, he graduated with honors in Electronic Music from the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Florence and currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Sound Design at the Giovan Battista Martini Conservatory of Bologna. He began studying classical trumpet at the L. Cherubini Conservatory at the age of 8, performing with the Conservatory’s Youth Orchestra and the Filarmonica Gioacchino Rossini. After leaving classical studies, in 2015 he embarked on a musical journey with several bands from the Florentine underground scene, with whom he produced three studio albums and played countless concerts in Italy and abroad, including a tour in Mexico in 2022. Alongside his performance activity, he developed a strong interest in electronic music and sound design, culminating in a thesis on the sound design for the interactive installation Quantum Jungle and his subsequent enrollment in the Master’s program in Sound Design. His current research and study areas include sound design and sound art, soundscape studies, multichannel sound diffusion and spatialization techniques, acousmatic composition and electroacoustic improvisation. In the past year, he has collaborated with groups such as Bologna Improvisation Group and Tempo Reale Electroacoustic Ensemble, while also releasing his first solo work, a collection of soundscape compositions inspired by R. Murray Schafer’s essay “The Soundscape – Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World”, titled “PEM! - Paesaggi Elettronicamente Modificati”. During the same period, he joined the Bologna-based electronic post-rock project Edera and is currently co-curator of the acousmatic music and sound art festival “Suonforma”.

Francesco Venturi

Francesco Venturi is the foundier of CRIV. A musician, voice artist, and researcher, he graduated in composition from the Milan Conservatory, studied musicology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is currently pursuing a PhD at Kingston University focusing on voice education. Active in the emerging field of voice studies, he has published in academic journals and international magazines. He is the author of Creak: Theories and Practices of Pulse Phonation (2025), the first monograph dedicated to vocal fry and its articulation across human and animal vocality. He has presented his research at universities and cultural institutions throughout Europe and leads international workshops on voice in artistic, educational, and clinical contexts. Venturi has taught at the Milan Conservatory, Policlinico of Milan, Opera Domani, the Nurt Foundation, and many other institutions. As a performing artist, he has been active since 2014 in theatre, museum, and music contexts, including Hangar Bicocca, Manifesta, Palais de Tokyo, Hayward Gallery, Transart Festival, and the National Theatre of Milan. As an opera singer, he has toured productions since 2019 as a member of AsLiCo. He has studied voice and singing with Guillermo Bussolini, Margaret Pikes, and Ermanna Montanari.

Olimpia Vivarelli

Speech-Language Pathologist expert in Artistic Vocology, lecturer in the Speech-Language Pathology degree program at the University of Ferrara and at the Vocology Master’s in Ravenna. She focuses on prevention, assessment, and rehabilitation of voice disorders in spoken, acted, and sung contexts. She individually follows voice actors, actors, and singers in their vocal research journey. She collaborates with various professionals, including phoniatricians, osteopaths, actors, and singing teachers, in scientific research on singing pedagogy and vocal training within gender affirmation processes.