Biography
Pianist Agnese Toniutti focuses her work on contemporary repertoire that emphasizes extended techniques, improvisation, and innovative sound production. Her programs regularly integrate performed music with spoken elements, while her parallel research activities have yielded multiple published articles.
She completed piano studies under Giorgio Lovato at the Conservatory of Venice, submitting a thesis on Giacinto Scelsi, and attended chamber-music instruction along with master classes led by François-Joël Thiollier, Massimiliano Damerini, and Lya de Barberiis, among others. In 2009 she took part in the project Hommage à John, honoring the memory of John Cage; in 2015 she appeared in Environmental Dialogue, directed by Pauline Oliveros in Venice, which later aired on Wave Farm Radio in New York. Toniutti has concentrated particularly on Scelsi’s output, presenting the 2010 concert-and-research program “Around Scelsi” that examined the composer and his circle. She has delivered numerous lectures on Scelsi and served as music director of the 2014 festival Scelsiana, which featured master classes by performers and pedagogues who had collaborated closely with him. A 2019 U.S. tour consisted of lecture-recitals devoted to Scelsi’s music. Her first recording, issued in 2020 on the Da Vinci Classics label, was the album Lento trascolorare – piano music, containing works by Giancarlo Cardini.
Recitals by Toniutti typically center on one composer or thematic focus and interweave live performance with audio documents and excerpts from writings. Programs have addressed Scelsi, Cage, Cardini, the Fluxus movement, and women’s creative activity from the 1950s onward, the last of these encompassing composer Lucia Dlugoszewski, the subject of Toniutti’s PhD thesis. She has issued several papers on notation and improvisation and joined the 2020 American Musicological Society conference panel. Subsequent recordings on the Neuma label include Subtle Matters, centered on Dlugoszewski (2021), and John Cage: Sonatas & Interludes (2023).
She completed piano studies under Giorgio Lovato at the Conservatory of Venice, submitting a thesis on Giacinto Scelsi, and attended chamber-music instruction along with master classes led by François-Joël Thiollier, Massimiliano Damerini, and Lya de Barberiis, among others. In 2009 she took part in the project Hommage à John, honoring the memory of John Cage; in 2015 she appeared in Environmental Dialogue, directed by Pauline Oliveros in Venice, which later aired on Wave Farm Radio in New York. Toniutti has concentrated particularly on Scelsi’s output, presenting the 2010 concert-and-research program “Around Scelsi” that examined the composer and his circle. She has delivered numerous lectures on Scelsi and served as music director of the 2014 festival Scelsiana, which featured master classes by performers and pedagogues who had collaborated closely with him. A 2019 U.S. tour consisted of lecture-recitals devoted to Scelsi’s music. Her first recording, issued in 2020 on the Da Vinci Classics label, was the album Lento trascolorare – piano music, containing works by Giancarlo Cardini.
Recitals by Toniutti typically center on one composer or thematic focus and interweave live performance with audio documents and excerpts from writings. Programs have addressed Scelsi, Cage, Cardini, the Fluxus movement, and women’s creative activity from the 1950s onward, the last of these encompassing composer Lucia Dlugoszewski, the subject of Toniutti’s PhD thesis. She has issued several papers on notation and improvisation and joined the 2020 American Musicological Society conference panel. Subsequent recordings on the Neuma label include Subtle Matters, centered on Dlugoszewski (2021), and John Cage: Sonatas & Interludes (2023).
Albums
