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Massimo Zicari

Associate research Professor in Music Pedagogy

Massimo Zicari, PhD., is Deputy Head of Research at the University of Music (Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana) in Lugano, where he also teaches music history since 2005. In 2009 he was visiting Fellow at the Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, for a project concerning the reception of Verdi’s Operas in London. His studies focus mainly on opera production and reception and his most recent publications in this domain include: Verdi in Victorian London. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016; “La prima recezione di Giuseppe Verdi a Londra: Henry Fothergill Chorley e l’Athenaeum” (Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 2011; “Critica musicale e opera italiana a Londra: George Bernard Shaw”, (Musica e Storia, 2011); “Nothing but the Commonest Tunes: The Early Reception of Verdi’s Operas in London, 1845-1848” (Dissonanz, 2011); The Land of Song, La terra del Belcanto sulla stampa londinese nel decennio 1890 - 1900 (Peter Lang, 2008). His research areas include also the historically informed performance practice of Italian opera such as acoustics and performance science (“’Ah! non credea mirarti’ nelle fonti discografiche di primo Novecento: Adelina Patti e Luisa Tetrazzini,” Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 34/35 (2014/2015), pp.193-222; “Expressive Tempo Modifications in Adelina Patti’s Recordings,” Empirical Musicology Review Vol. 12, n. 1-2 (2017)) and acoustics (Zicari, M., MacRitchie, J. et al. “Trumpet mouthpiece manufacturing and tone quality”, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 134 (5), November 2013, p. 3872–3886). He takes an interest also in the investigation of music pedagogy (MacRitchie, J., Zicari, M., & Blom, D. (2018). Identifying challenges and opportunities for student composer and performer peer learning through newly-composed classical piano scores. British Journal of Music Education, 1-23).

 

Projects

2021/2022 - Eventi culturali e artistici: nuove modalità di produzione, fruizione e partecipazione https://programma-eventi.supsi.ch/cms/

2021 – Caruso e il suo tempo (1./2). www.rsi.ch/caruso-e-il-suo-tempo

2021 – Caruso e il suo tempo (2./2). www.rsi.ch/caruso-e-il-suo-tempo 

2018-2020 – Early 20th Century’s recordings: reconstructing  Italian bel canto. https://early-recordings.com/programme/  

2015-2018 – Expressive tempo modification in early 20th Century’s recordings of vocal performances

2012/2014 – Giuseppe Verdi in the London Press. A study on Opera reception

2011 – “Shape the Sound: Trumpet mouthpiece manufacturing and tone quality”, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation

2008 - Articulations and Mouthpiece morphology in Brass Instruments: Trumpet and Horn. Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation

2004 – “The reception of Italian operatic theatre in London at the end of 19th century”. Research project on the history of opera reception, criticism and management in London over the last decade of the 19th century

June 2003 - December 2004: “Il verismo e le strategie di mercato nella cultura europea a cavallo tra ‘800 e ‘900” (Verismo and the market oriented strategies in European Culture at the turn of the 19th century). The research, conducted in collaboration with Hubert Eiholzer, aimed at exploring the possible origins of the so-called mass art in veristic operatic theatre by means of Noël Carroll’s theory of mass art (1998)

January - December 2003: Cantata per la traslazione del sangue di San Gennaro by Paisiello, 1793. The project led to the first modern performance of this forgotten manuscript, recovered in the library of the Naples Conservatoire, and to the edition of the score, published for Ut-Orpheus, Bologna (Italy), 2005

2002 -“Dizionario dei Musicisti della Svizzera Italiana”, a project, in collaboration with the Associazione Ricerche Musicali nella Svizzera Italiana, to produce an on-line dictionary with biographies of the most important musicians in the Italian speaking region of Switzerland of the past www.ricercamusica.ch

2001 - “Mastery through Imitation” research project in collaboration with Dr. Hubert Eiholzer, and Dr. Aaron Williamon and Dr. Tânia Lisboa, Royal College of Music, London; the project was funded by the Swiss National Fund. The results have been presented at the ESCOM Conference on Musical Creativity - Liège - 5-8 April 2002 and the 7th ICMPC - the world conference on music psychology and related disciplines - at the The University of New South Wales, Sydney, 17-21 July 2002, and published on Musicae Scientiae, Journal of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music ESCOM (2005)

 

 

2001 - “Bakom” research project, in collaboration with Dr. Ruth Hungerbühler, Communication Science Faculty at Università della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano), and Hubert Eiholzer, Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana; the research explored the tendencies of the broadcasting policy at the three culture channels of Swiss Radio (Rete Due, DRS 2, Espace 2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publications

  • Zicari, M., & Biasutti, M. (2024). Early twentieth-century recordings in higher music education: a preliminary analysis of the students’ views. British Journal of Music Education, 1–16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S026505172400024X
  • Zicari, M., & Biasutti, M. (2024). Early recordings and the training of performers. In G. Volioti & D. G. Barolsky (Eds.), Recorded Music in Creative Practices Mediation, Performance, Education (1st ed., p. 17). Routledge. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003190004
  • Massimo Zicari (2022) The Voice of the Century: The Culture of Italian Bel Canto in Luisa Tetrazzini’s Recorded Interpretations (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers), https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1530
  • Zicari, M. (a cura di) (2022)., Didattica musicale e ricerca - 2021, (Quaderni del Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana), Lucca, LIM, https://www.lim.it/it/extra-sconto/6297-didattica-musicale-e-ricerca-2021-9788855431354.html#/2-tipo_prodotto-libro
  • Zicari, M. (2021). Cultural Stereotypes and the Reception of Verdi’s Operas in Victorian London Operas in Victorian London, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 00, 1–14 https://doi.org/10.1080/1354571X.2020.1855803
  • Zicari, M., Bernardi, C., & Cruder, C. (2021). EVENTI : un’ indagine sulla resilienza delle istituzioni musicali della Svizzera italiana in tempi di pandemia. Schweizer Jahrbuch Für Musikwissenschaft- Annales Suisses de Musicologie- Annuario Svizzero Di Musicologia, 38, 97–102. https://doi.org/10.36950/sjm.38.13
  • Massimo Zicari (2020). Identità stilistica e capriccio: Luisa Tetrazzini nelle registrazioni discografiche. Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, n. 55, pp. 153-210. 
    https://www.sidm.it/ojs/index.php/ridm/issue/view/119
  • Massimo Zicari (2019). Expressive Tempo Modifications in Early 20th-Century Recorded Performances of Operatic Arias. Music & Practice, Vol. 5. doi: 10.32063/0507. 
    https://www.musicandpractice.org/volume-5/expressive-tempo-modifications-in-early-20th-century-recorded-performances-of-operatic-arias/
  • Jennifer MacRitchie, Massimo Zicari, Diana Blom, “Identifying peer learning opportunities for student composers and performers through newly-composed piano scores” The British Journal of Music Education, 2018 0:0, 1–23.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Il Pierrot Au Cinema di Ruggero Leoncavallo”, Musica/Realtà, 115 (marzo 2018)
  • Massimo Zicari, “Expressive Tempo Modifications in Adelina Patti’s Recordings,” Empirical Musicology Review, 2017, Vol. 12, No. 1-2, 2017.
  • Massimo Zicari, Verdi in Victorian London, (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2016)
  • Massimo Zicari, “’Ah! non credea mirarti’ nelle fonti discografiche di primo Novecento: Adelina Patti e Luisa Tetrazzini,” Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft, 34/35 (2014/2015), pp.193-222.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Un caso di moralità: La Traviata nella Londra Vittoriana (1856)”, Musica/Realtà, 103, marzo 2014.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Verdi and Wagner in early Victorian London: the viewpoint of The Musical World, ” Studia Musica, 1, 2014.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Ruggero Leoncavallo y la genesis de Pagliacci,” Libro de la Temporada Abao Olbe 2014-2015, Bilbao, Abao-Olbe, 2014.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Verdi e il Risorgimento”, in Arte e Storia, Aprile-Luglio 2013, n. 58.
  • Massimo Zicari, Jennifer MacRitchie et al. “Trumpet mouthpiece manufacturing and tone quality,” Acoust. Soc. Am. 134(5), November 2013.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Giuseppe Verdi in Victorian London”, in Studia Musica, 2/2012.
  • MacRitchie, J. and Zicari, M. (2012) "The Intentions of Piano Touch", in Proceedings of the Joint 12th International Conference of Music Perception and Cognition ICMPC and 8th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music ESCOM, Thessaloniki, Greece, 23-28 July 2012.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Nothing but the Commonest Tunes: The Early Reception of Verdi’s Operas in London, 1845-1848”, in Dissonanz, June 2011, n. 114.
  • Massimo Zicari, “La prima recezione di Giuseppe Verdi a Londra: Henry Fothergill Chorley e l’Athenaeum”, Schweizer Jahrbuch für Musikwissenschaft (Bern: Lang, 2011)
  • Massimo Zicari (a cura di), Ricerca e Musica, La ricerca applicata nei Conservatori di Musica, Varese, Zecchini Editore, 2010.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Produzione e percezione del suono negli ottoni”, in Dissonanz, 110, June 2010.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Giacomo Puccini” in Musica, Sydney, Millennium House, 2009.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Critica musicale e opera italiana a Londra nell’Ottocento: Gorge Bernard Shaw”, in Musica e Storia, XVII/2 (2009).
  • Massimo Zicari, The Land of Song, La terra del Belcanto sulla stampa londinese nel decennio 1890 - 1900, Bern, Peter Lang Verlag, 2008.
  • Massimo Zicari, “Leoncavallo effimero,” Il giornale della Musica, Torino, Edt, Marzo 2007
  • Massimo Zicari, Musica? Magia?, in “Altri sguardi” 2006, n. 6.
  • Harvey Sachs, Massimo Zicari, Formazione musicale tra università e mercato, società e arte, Lugano, Fontana Edizioni, 2006.
  • Tânia Lisboa, Aaron Williamon, Massimo Zicari, Hubert Eiholzer, Mastery through imitation; a preliminary study, in “Musicae Scientiae, Journal of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music”, ESCOM (2005).
  • Massimo Zicari, Musica, acustica e società, in “Altri Sguardi – Forme e sensi del reale contemporaneo”, April 2005, n. 4, Edizioni del Faro (Switzerland).
  • Massimo Zicari, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, in “Theaterlexikon der Schweiz”, Chronos Verlag (2005)
  • Carlo Piccardi, Massimo Zicari, Un’immagine musicale del Ticino, Milano, Lugano, G. Casagrande, 2005.
  • Giovanni Paisiello, Cantata a tre per la traslazione del sangue del glorioso martire S. Gennaro (1973), a cura di Leonardo Muzii e Massimo Zicari, Bologna, Ut-Orpheus, 2005.
  • Massimo Zicari, Drammaturgia nel teatro musicale di Ruggero Leoncavallo, “Musica e Storia” (2004).
  • Tânia Lisboa, Aaron Williamon, Massimo Zicari, Hubert Eiholzer, An alternative to midi data: Analysing timing and dynamics of strings performances, in C. Stevens, D. Burnham, G. McPherson, E. Schubert and J. Renwick (eds), proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Adelaide, Causal Productions, 2002.

 

Contact

Massimo Zicari

Deputy Head of Research 

massimo.zicari@conservatorio.ch