Massimo Marchese

Massimo Marchese is a lutenist with a long international career as a soloist and continuo player. He has collaborated with leading early music ensembles and appeared in concert in many countries. By the time of Dialogues with Time, his discography comprised more than eighteen recordings, eight of them as a soloist, for labels including RCA, Stradivarius, Tactus, Brilliant Classics and Centaur.

He took up the instrument at an early age, studied with Jakob Lindberg and obtained a diploma from the Royal College of Music in London. Further studies with Paul O’Dette, Nigel North and Hopkinson Smith helped shape his performing career. Since 1980 he has performed as a soloist and continuo player with singers including Nigel Rogers and Furio Zanasi. He has also worked with Lindberg in the Dodekachordon ensemble, as well as with Enrico Gatti, Ottavio Dantone and Flavio Emilio Scogna.

His tours have taken him to musical centres in Italy and abroad, including Utrecht’s Oude Muziek lute festival, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique–Sorbonne in Paris, the Festival of Sacred Music in Tenerife and the Sofia Music Weeks. He was artist in residence at the Italian Cultural Institute in Osaka in June and July 2016. His radio appearances include RAI Radio 2, Radio 3’s Piazza Verdi and La Stanza della Musica, and Bulgarian National Radio.

His pioneering monographic recordings include music by Francesco Spinacino (Tactus, 2006), Franciscus Bossinensis (Tactus, 2004), Joachim van den Hove (Brilliant Classics, 2015), and Robert de Visée’s published works of 1682, 1686 and 1716 (Brilliant Classics, 2011–2015). His musicological research and lectures have helped bring attention to composers such as Gabriele Fallamero and his music of 1584.

In 2003 he taught lute in the Early Music Department of the A. Vivaldi Conservatory in Alessandria. From 1993 to 2000 he was president of the Alessandria branch of S.I.E.M., the Italian Society for Music Education. In 1997 he took part in the Landeskongress Schulmusik in Stuttgart. He has served as artistic director and musical consultant for several festivals; through C.I.M.A.Al, the Italian Centre of Early Music in Alessandria, he organised and directed the European Festival of Early Music in Eastern Piedmont from 2004 until 2014.