Piano

Sara's musical adventure begins at early age. She has always been fascinated by strange sounds, complex rhythms, ethnic & folk music and non-verbal forms of communication. She also got a lot of inspiration from the various programmes broadcasted by the Italian cultural radio RAI Radio3.

She embarked in the academic studies for classical piano under the guidance of Caterina Vasaturo at the "L. Marenzio" Conservatory of Darfo Boario Terme (Brescia). She graduated in the Traditional Diploma. She had the chance to expand her music knowledge thanks to Antonio Valentino (chamber music), Marino Pessina (music analysis), Vincenzo Simmarano (harmony, counterpoint and fugue, composition).

Later on, she met on her way the pianist Andrea Rebaudengo who took her on a journey through the XX Century piano repertoire. She graduated cum laude for her Classical piano Master's degree with a thesis on "The piano music of Béla Bartók and the research on the folk element" under his teachings and the precious help of Marina Baudoux.

She moved to The Netherlands to complete her Composition studies at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague. In the meantime she continued to study piano and chamber music with Gerard Bouwhuis, with a special attention to the Modern and Contemporary repertoire.

She played as a soloist as well as in chamber music groups in various concert venues and notable international festivals such as Korzo Theatre, Theater De Nieuwe Regentes, Het Nutshuis (Den Haag), 'Gaudeamus Festival' (Tivoli-Vredenburg) in Utrecht, 'NJO Muziekzomer 2017' in Apeldoorn and Nunspeet & in the 'Takemitsu Festival' (De Doelen) in Rotterdam with Pulse Wave Quartet. She performed in 'Holland Festival 2019' in Amsterdam where she participated in Stockhausen/AUS LICHT, a production in collaboration with The Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, the Dutch National Opera and Ballet, Holland Festival and the Karlheinz Stockhausen Foundation.

Composition

She studied Composition at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, The Netherlands, under the teachings of Martijn Padding and Calliope Tsoupaki. She achieved a brilliant B.A. degree in Composition and later on she graduated for her M.A. with distinction: "For the commitment in creating new forms of mixed acoustic and electronic composition". At the same time, she also followed courses in the Institute of Sonology such as 'Composing in the analogue studio' with Kees Tazelaar and 'Audio engineering in electronic music' with Paul Jeukendrup. These two classes in particular gave a boost to her analytical approach to music technology.

As a composer, she has been selected to take part to the Composer Collider Europe (CCE) 2017-2020, a composition project launched by the Köln-based Ensemble Musikfabrik. Her composition Lumen de Lumine (2018) has been premiered at the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra (GR) conducted by Christian Eggen and professionally recorded in Köln in November 2020.

She is currently focussed on composing for acoustic instruments and recordings of these on multichannel fixed media (once known as 'tape'). Combining acoustic instruments and their digital counterparts represents a big fascination for her: it requires instrumental knowledge combined with music technology. The main purpose of this, is exploring the relationship between the player and several versions of him/herself, and the consequences in sound and stage presence that they might generate.

She started a series of compositions committing to this combination: A Playful Piece for clarinet and stereo fixed media; Lumen de Lumine for 11 instruments and 6-channels fixed media and Dark Vocalise for voice and 5-channels fixed media. Embarking in such projects required her to develop a strong mentality of team-work, where creative elements and practical aspects are always confronted and discussed with her performers and audio engineers.