Biography

Alberto Nones (Trento, 1975) is a tenured professor of Music History at the “G. Rossini” Conservatory of Music in Pesaro. As a pianist, philosopher, historian of music, and educator, he seeks to show how to meaningfully inform performance practices within a broad cultural framework aimed at exploring the significance of making music today. 

His musical and humanistic education includes the following qualifications: a Diploma degree in Piano (awarded with highest honors) from the “F.A. Bonporti” Conservatory of Trento, with further advanced studies in academies and masterclasses under distinguished teachers such as Paul Badura-Skoda and Franco Scala; a Laurea degree (MA) in Philosophy (awarded with highest honors) from the University of Bologna; an M.Sc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he was a scholarship recipient of the Fondazione Trentino Università; and a Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Trento. He has conducted research, recognized with several awards, at the Università della Svizzera Italiana (post-doc), at the University of Trento (post-doc), and at various universities abroad, where he held some of the most prestigious research positions: “Marie Curie” Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2005–2006), where he worked on identity and European integration; “Fulbright” Research Fellow and Olin-Lehrman Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University (respectively in 2007 and 2009–2010), where he undertook research on the concept of patriotism in political theory and the expression of patriotism in music.

His musicological publications include four monographs (on Zandonai, Verdi, Bonporti, and the Doors), as well as three edited volumes. Among these, the collection Classical Music in a Changing World: Crisis and Vital Signs, co-edited with the distinguished American musicologist Lawrence Kramer; his work shares strong affinities with the New Musicology approach associated with Kramer. He has also published peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Music & Politics, Perspectives: The Central European Review of International Affairs and Musica/Realtà, and many other essays in edited volumes, articles and translations, including the English translation of Maurizio Viroli’s book Come se Dio ci fosse (Einaudi, 2009), published as As If God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2012).

His discography, usually accompanied by scholarly liner notes written by himself, have been broadcast by Rai Radio3, Radio Vaticana, and other radio stations. As a soloist, Alberto Nones is engaged with Halidon Music in a complete recording of Chopin’s works that has attracted considerable interest from both audiences and critics. To date, the albums Complete Mazurkas, Complete Fantasies, Complete Nocturnes, Complete Waltzes—including the world premiere recording on a historical instrument of the waltz rediscovered in New York in 2024, performed on a Pleyel from Chopin’s era belonging to Nones’s personal collection—and, most recently, Complete Preludes & Impromptus have been released. Among his other solo recordings are Reflecting Mozart (awarded five stars by Pizzicato in a review entitled “Broken Barriers”); another album, released in 2022, pairing Rachmaninov with the living Ukrainian composer Silvestrov as part of an initiative for cultural diplomacy, solidarity and peace (Anima Records); and, as a series of world premiere recordings, the Nocturnes by the Palestinian composer Mahmoud Abuwarda, besides a piece for piano and cello, dedicated to him, recorded with the young cellist Lavinia Repupilli, a former student of his. Within this broader perspective attentive to the social function of music, Alberto Nones also collaborates with Operanauts, a US-based charity committed to promoting positive social change in Congo by means of music initiatives. He has been invited there to lead Verdi opera training for the Operanauts Joy Concours choirs and chorus masters, fostering artistic excellence while supporting processes of healing and growth fostered by music.

In the field of chamber music, he has recorded the Sonatas for piano and violin by Johannes Brahms (with Franco Mezzena) and three albums devoted to the vocal chamber repertoire: Golden Nothingness, the complete works for soprano and piano by Marco Anzoletti (a world premiere recording resulting from his research in the archive of the Biblioteca Comunale di Trento, for Da Vinci Classics, with soprano Gabriella Costa); Pietro Cimara L’Infinito, an album dedicated to the works for soprano and piano by Pietro Cimara (with Nunzia Santodirocco, also for Da Vinci Classics); and West-East-Bound Musical Encounters, the first volume of a project exploring musical encounters between East and West, devoted to Lieder by Brahms and Isang Yun (with soprano Hyunah Cecilia Son, Halidon Music).

He has presented concerts and papers in Italy, France (including as invited specialist at the Sorbonne IReMus Conference on Music and Musicology), Germany, Austria, Greece (Megaron Hall, in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Athens), the Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia (with the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in St. Petersburg), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Armenia, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait.

With more than twenty-five years of multilingual and interdisciplinary teaching experience, he has taught at the Universities of Trento (courses in Ethics and Politics of Peacebuilding and, for several years, Political Philosophy), Lugano (Political Communication and Political Foundations of the Public Institutions), the United Arab Emirates University (International Ethics, Citizenship and Civil Society, Critical Thinking and Creative Writing), and he has also taught Music History, Chamber Music and Piano at the Conservatories of Como,  Foggia and Rodi Garganico, Gallarate, Matera, and Perugia.

Among his professional engagements and academic and institutional appointments, in Italy and abroad, are: a collaboration since 2011 with Rai (Trento branch) as a SIAE-registered author and composer, radio author and presenter; the founding and ongoing directorship, since 2017, of the European Association for Music and Communication (AEMC); several institutional appointments at the “G. Puccini” Conservatory in Gallarate, where he served as Academic Coordinator, Artistic Programming Coordinator, Academic Lead for the Study Manifesto (curricular framework), and Internationalization Officer; and the title of Honorary Visiting Teacher of Piano, awarded to him in 2021 by the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, in Palestine, in recognition of his philanthropic contributions. He has been selected for inclusion in the European Commission’s EACEA Expert Database for the evaluation of Erasmus+ and Jean Monnet actions. He is a Life Member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University.