Mara Galassi

Mara Galassi graduated from the Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano and the Pesaro Conservatory of Music with honours.

She studied pedal harp with Luciana Chierici, David Watkins, and Emmy Huerlimann, performance practice with David Collyer and Patrick O’Brien and musicology with Michael Morrow. She has served as principal harpist for the Opera Houses of Genova, Florence and Palermo. She developed her activities as soloist and as a member of some of the most famous early music Ensembles in Europe. As musicologist she has done extensive research in the field of historical harps. She has recorded many Cds for various labels, among them Il viaggio di Lucrezia, (Cannes Award and Choc de la Musique). In Duo with the dancer Deda Cristina Colonna she joined the film “Voluptas dolendi” (Marco Fodella Foundation) and the program “Alltid densamme” on Queen Christine of Sweden. She recently founded the “Ensemble de harpes Sebastièn Erard”. She teaches historical harps and chamber music at the Civica Scuola di Musica Milan, and at the ESMUC in Barcelona, and has given many performance practice masterclasses abroad.