Research Interests:

History
Opera
Criticism
Reception

Massimo Zicari

Dr. Massimo Zicari, flutist and musicologist, graduated with the highest marks in 1988, and subsequently did a soloist diploma at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (Switzerland), studying with Mario Ancillotti (flute) and Janos Meszaros (chamber music). At the same time, he studied at the Università degli Studi di Bologna (Italy), graduating “cum laude” with a doctoral dissertation on the dramaturgy in veristic operatic theatre.

He attended several master classes with Conrad Klemm, Trevor Wye, William Bennett, Marzio Conti and M. Larrieu in Italy, Great Britain, Greece and Switzerland. Winner of various prestigious competitions in Italy such as “Briccialdi” (Terni), “Galilei” (Florence), “Krakamp” (Naples), he was a performing soloist with the Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Umbria, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and the Orchestra del Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana.

In 1996, he was invited to take part in the Davos Festival Young Artists in Concert (Switzerland), where he recorded and broadcasted for the German speaking Swiss Radio. He performed in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Geneva (Victoria Hall), Lucerne, Zurich, Lugano, and Cologne.

As a critic, he published articles for the Swiss newspaper “La Regione” and produced and presented programmes on the history of musical interpretation for the Radio Televisione della Svizzera Italiana (RSI Rete Due). He wrote the article on Ruggero Leoncavallo for the Dizionario Teatrale Svizzero (Theaterlexikon der Schweiz) and another one on the same composer for Musica e Storia, Venice. As a reviewer of musicological publications he makes regular contributions to Il Saggiatore Musicale (Bologna, Italy).

From 1996 to 2001 he was flute and woodwind chamber music teacher at the junior department of the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. Since 2000 he has been a research fellow at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. Since January 2003 he has been head of the Dipartimento dei Servizi at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, where he is responsible for the cultural projects of the school.

Since 2005 he teaches “Music History” at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana. Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London in 2009, for a project concerning the reception of Verdi’s Opera in London.

Current Projects

Shape the Sound: Trumpet mouthpiece manufacturing and tone quality

The reception of Verdi's operas in London

Publications

• 2011

  • Zicari,M. "Critica musicale e opera italiana a Londra: Gorge Bernard Shaw", in Musica e Storia, Edizioni il Mulino (Bologna), by the Fondazione Levi, Venice. In print.

  • Zicari,M. "Nothing but the Commonest Tunes: The Early Reception of Verdi’s Operas in London, 1845-1848", Dissonanz, June 2011, n. 114.

• 2010

  • Zicari,M. (a cura di), "Ricerca e Musica", La ricerca applicata nei Conservatori di Musica, Varese, Zecchini Editore

  • Zicari,M. "Produzione e percezione del suono negli ottoni", Dissonanz, 110, June 2010.

• 2009

  • Zicari,M. "Giacomo Puccini", in Musica, Sydney, Millennium House, 2009.

• 2008

  • Zicari,M. "The Land of Song, La terra del Belcanto sulla stampa londinese nel decennio 1890 - 1900", Bern, Peter Lang Verlag, 2008;

• 2007

  • Zicari,M. Leoncavallo effimero, “Il giornale della Musica”, Torino, Edt, Marzo 2007.

  • Zicari,M. "Il Pierrot au Cinema di Ruggero Leoncavallo", Atti del V Convegno internazionale "Ruggero Leoncavallo nel suo tempo", Milano, Sonzogno editore (in print);