Biography
I am Head of the Competence Centre Music Performance Research at the School of Music, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and member of the Music and Wellbeing research unit, University of Sheffield. My research interests lie in the psychology of performance, sociology and psychology of music consumption, and the appreciation and evaluation of musical performance, with a particular focus on the ways in which listeners communicate their evaluative decisions.
I have a background in both performance and research: prior to discovering my passion for the academic work I gained a Diploma in Piano Performance and a MA in Music Pedagogy and worked for a few years as a pianist and piano pedagogue in Italy, Austria and Switzerland.
Following a period of training as research assistant at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, I gained a PhD in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music, London, with a project on the nature of critical review judgements of recorded performance partially financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss State Secretariat for Innovation, Research and Education.
My current work includes an investigation of the role of recorded performance criticism in the classical music market and its impact on the end consumers of recordings. The project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and run in collaboration with the Music, Mind and Machine Research Centre at the Department of Music, University of Sheffield.
Recently I have also joined in a series of interdisciplinary projects in collaboration with our School of Engineering and Architecture, with the aim of developing innovative infrastructural solutions to optimize music learning spaces.
