I am a violinist, musicologist, educator and manager who specialises in early modern music, especially Italian. My work blends historical-theoretical reflections with interpretative-practical approaches. As a scholar, I am interested in the relationship between compositional thought and sound ideals; as a practitioner, I focus on the historically informed performance of chamber music repertoires.

Before entering the academia, I was at various points in his life a freelance violinist for period-instrument orchestras, the leader of a one-to-a-part ensemble specialising in music of the Spanish Golden Age, a musical entrepreneur and a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. These varied activities are reflected my publications, which range from a CD-ROM on the cultural and musical heritage of the Crown of Spain in the sixteenth century (2000) to a book on music education in early childhood (2007), to a recorded anthology of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century violin music (2007), to several essays on early modern instrumental music.

I was educated in Milan (BMus), Boston (MMus) and Oxford (MSt and DPhil). I studied modern violin with Felice Cusano and Zinaida Gilels, historical violin with Phoebe Carrai and Manfredo Kraemer, and historical musicology with Laurence Dreyfus. I have won numerous awards, including a grant of the Fondazione Academia Montis Regalis Onlus for advanced training in historical orchestral practices (1995), a visiting scholarship at the Faculty of Music and Centre for Music & Science of Cambridge University (2004) and a Scatcherd European Scholarship from the University of Oxford for conducting archival research in Bologna (2008). I have also been Plumer Visiting Fellow at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford, and Artist in Residence with the St Anne’s Camerata.

I was Lecturer in Music at Jesus College, Lincoln College and Magdalen College of the University of Oxford and subsequently Senior Lecturer in Music and Director of Performance at Liverpool Hope University. Formerly the Director of the international Cornerstone Arts Festival, I am currently the Director of Early Music as Education (EMAE), a registered charity that promotes the value of early music as a tool for cultural, social and economic development across the globe.