Born in Trento, Italy, Stefania Neonato graduated at her home town Conservatory and earned a Master in Fortepiano Performance Practice at the International Piano Academy “Incontri col Maestro” (Imola, Bologna).

After a BA degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Trento which brought her to SUNY at Binghamton for her thesis research, she’s currently a doctoral candidate at Cornell University in the Historical Performance Practice program under Malcolm Bilson.
Winner of many National Piano Competitions (Albenga, Alessandria, Pisa etc.), she collected gratifying awards at International Contests she played in the most important Italian cities (Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Brescia, Venice, Padua, Bolzano, Cremona) and in several foreign centres (Paris, Salzburg, Miami, Miskolc, Dortmund), both as a soloist and with orchestras; particularly prestigious was her appearance with the Costanta Symphonic Orchestra at the “Teatro Grande” in Brescia.

She attended many master-classes around the world (among them at the Mozarteum in Salzburg) and was recipient of scholarships from the Interlochen Arts Camp (Michigan) and from the School of Music of Miami University.

She studied with Riccardo Zadra, Leonid Margarius and Aldo Ciccolini and had a thorough and serious training in piano performance. But her interest in historical instruments had already been arisen by the meeting with the pianist Alexander Lonquich whom she followed in many seminars and lessons on classical and romantic piano music played on the original instruments (on the collections of the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence, Giulini in Briosco-Milan, Imola-Bologna).

This particular stream of interest is further developed in Lieder-repertoire (deepened with Irwin Gage) and in chamber music which has a particular place in her activity. Musical partners are members of the baroque ensemble “Concerto Italiano”, soprano Maria Letizia Grosselli, cellist John Haines-Eitzen.

In 2004 she was invited to give a seminar on historical performance practice at Trento Conservatory and in 2005 her first recording was released: it features Mozart, Beethoven and Dussek on a 1780 Viennese fortepiano (available on the website www.bravomaestro.com). Stefania is also committed to musicological issues, writes articles and essays for music journals and for radio interviews.

Highlights of the 2006-2007 season were an all-Chopin recital with cellist John Haines-Eitzen (both in Ithaca and Italy), an all-Mozart recital for the Mozart Foundation in Italy (June), Mozart’s Piano Concerto KV 456 with the Cornell Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca and Rochester, and the performance of Schubert’s “Schwanengesang” on a 1865 Steinway & Sons in Bologna (January 2007). Coming up, an all-Chopin recital in Buffalo and Schumann and Beethoven’s Piano Trios on historical instruments at Cornell (April 2007).