As a musicologist and music theorist, Peter van Tour has specialized in aural training pedagogy, counterpoint pedagogy and historic improvisation and composition. He studied Music Pedagogy (Master Exam, 5 years) at Brabant Conservatory in Tilburg, Master in Musicology at the University of Utrecht and Master in Music Theory (MA) at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Peter's PhD dissertation Counterpoint and Partimento: Methods of Teaching Composition in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala, 2015) highlights the practical teaching strategies at the Neapolitan conservatories during the late eighteenth century. In 1995, Peter co-founded the Gotland School of Music Composition, where he has been teaching Music Theory until 2014.

His current postdoctoral project 'The Improvised Fugue in Germany and Italy between 1670 and 1760' is hosted by the University of Leuven, and will investigate how organists were trained to acquire skills in fugal improvisation. Various kinds of short-hand notation in Italian and German sources from between 1670 and 1760 will be systematically investigated. This project is funded by the Swedish Research Council (July 2016 – July 2019).

Since the fall of 2017 Peter has joined the Department of Music Theory at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, where he has been appointed associate professor of Music Theory (www.nmh.no).

Personal homepage: www.vantour.se

In my everyday life, I mainly play music that I didn't invent myself. I draw inspiration from the way music was learned and taught long ago. In these styles, written forms of music can be considered as sketches. In many ways, you can already see what it is going to be, but you often have to add the colours and detailed embellishments, sometimes even redraw the outlines. I try to read the thoughts of the old music inventors and understand their music through what is written in the notes and the assumptions about what is not written in the notes. Through this way of making music, their music becomes my music.

Tabea Schwartz is a recorder player and has also specialised in playing early modern string instruments. Her artistic work is driven by her enthusiasm for historical tonal languages, which she seeks to combine with direct expression as a musician. In addition to her concert activities, her artistic expertise also includes an interest in musicological work. Furthermore, as a music teacher, she is committed to contemporary music education.
www.tabeaschwartz.com

DE:

In meinem Alltag spiele ich vor allem Musik, die ich nicht selbst erfunden habe. Ich lasse mich dabei von der Art inspirieren, durch die man vor langer Zeit Musik gelernt und gelehrt hat. Dazu gehört, dass man die Noten wie eine Skizze behandelt. Man erkennt also schon, was es werden soll, aber die Farben und detaillierten Verzierungen muss man häufig noch ergänzen, manchmal sogar die Umrisse neu nachzeichnen. Ich versuche, über das, was in den Noten steht und die Vermutungen zu dem, was nicht in den Noten steht, die Gedanken der alten Musikerfinder*innen zu lesen und ihre Musik zu verstehen. Durch diese Art, Musik zu machen, wird ihre Musik meine Musik.

Tabea Schwartz ist Blockflötistin und hat sich zudem auf das Spiel von Streichinstrumenten der frühen Neuzeit spezialisiert. Ihre künstlerische Arbeit wird getragen von der Begeisterung für historische Tonsprachen, die sie mit dem unmittelbaren Ausdruck als Musikerin zu verbinden weiß. Neben ihrer Konzerttätigkeit zählt auch ein Interesse für musikwissenschaftliche Arbeit zu ihrer künstlerischen Expertise. Darüber hinaus engagiert sie sich als Musikpädagogin für eine zeitgemäße Musikvermittlung.

Lydia Carlisi is a lecturer in music theory at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (CH) since 2019. Between 2015 and 2019 she taught music theory and ear training at the Musikhochschulen Freiburg im Breisgau and Karlsruhe (DE).

She completed her doctorate at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg i. Br. on the French reception of the Neapolitan Partimento at the time of the founding of the Paris Conservatoire under Prof. Dr. Ludwig Holtmeier and Dr. Claudio Bacciagaluppi.

Her dissertation was integrated into the SNF project “Creating the Neapolitan canon” at the Bern University of the Arts.

During her doctorate, she actively participated in various international congresses and wrote several publications. She is currently working as a postdoc in the Cherubini project at the HKB.

Lydia Carlisi ist seit 2019 Dozentin für Musiktheorie am Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano (CH). Zwischen 2015 und 2019 hat sie Musiktheorie und Gehörbildung an den Musikhochschulen Freiburg im Breisgau und Karlsruhe (DE) gelehrt.

Sie promoviert an der Hochschule für Musik Freiburg i. Br. über die französische Rezeption des neapolitanischen Partimento zur Zeit der Gründung des Pariser Conservatoires bei Prof. Dr. Ludwig Holtmeier und Dr. Claudio Bacciagaluppi.

Ihre Dissertation wurde in das SNF-Projekt "Creating the Neapolitan canon" der Hochschule der Künste Bern integriert.

Während ihrer Promotion nahm sie aktiv an verschiedenen internationalen Kongressen teil und verfasste mehrere Publikationen. Zurzeit arbeitet sie als Postdoc im Rahmen des Cherubini-Projekts an der HKB.

Nicola Pignatiello is a versatile musician whose career spans performance, pedagogy, and scholarly research. As a guitarist and lutenist, he has performed across Europe, the United States, and Canada, including concert tours as part of the Duo Scarlatti.

His dynamic concert projects include Baroque Flowers (a duo with viola da gambist Maurizio Di Chio), Cor Ferito (with soprano Sofya Yuneeva), and the Mishmash Quartet, which reimagines Mediterranean musical traditions.
Recognized for his contributions to music education, he was awarded the Italian Minister of Culture’s Teaching Prize Indicibili Incanti (2015). His pedagogical work increasingly focuses on workshops devoted to nineteenth-century partimenti and improvisation, bridging historical practice with modern guitar technique, as well as professional development programmes for teachers on how to integrate historical improvisation into instrumental teaching curricula. In 2026 he has given workshops at the Conservatories of Rome, Cesena, Latina, Foggia, Gdańsk, and Lübeck, and has been invited to give lectures and lecture-recitals in Mafra, Turin, Verona, Surrey, and Pavia.

As a researcher, Nicola is currently pursuing a PhD at Tor Vergata University, where he investigates the role of partimenti in reforming guitar pedagogy. His groundbreaking editions—including the first guitar realizations of partimenti and a guitar adaptation of Fedele Fenaroli’s Regole Musicali—have been presented at international conferences in Rome, Milan, Dublin, and Bloomington. His work has attracted commissions from prominent composers such as D. Bogdanović, M. Delpriora, S. Iannarelli, and G. Cascioli, who have dedicated new works to him.

Historical models, living practice: improvisation, pedagogy, and creative musicianship. Improvisation as musicianship: connecting historical sources, pedagogy, and artistic practice. From historical models to living practice: research-led teaching and creative musicianship.

Roberto Cornacchioni Alegre is a PhD candidate in Musicology at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), where he is currently researching nineteenth-century pedagogical traditions of improvisation and composition. His doctoral dissertation, “Teaching Improvisation and Composition in the Circle of F. Chopin”, explores primary sources from Poland and France in order to better understand how improvisation and composition were taught in Chopin’s milieu.

He previously completed a Master’s degree in Musicology with research on the pedagogy and sources of Giovanni Furno. Alongside his academic work, Roberto has pursued a wide range of musical studies, including piano, organ, and harpsichord. He has also studied partimento with Peter Van Tour, improvisation and nineteenth-century stylistic composition with Michael Koch, and baroque-style composition with Nicola Canzano.

Roberto is actively engaged in teaching and disseminating historical compositional practices. In 2025, together with Vinicius Jordão, he offered an online introductory course on partimento in Portuguese. In 2026 he is one of the instructors of a semester-long in-person extension course in Practical Counterpoint at the University of São Paulo.

Before dedicating himself fully to musicological research, Roberto earned a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture. He also has experience in the construction and restoration of historical keyboard instruments.

Robert de Bree is a recorder player, oboist, teacher and improviser. He teaches historical improvisation at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and taught workshops at the University of Texas (Austin), Liszt Academy Budapest, Mexico city and in other conservatories around Europe.

Robert taught and performed at the two biggest European improvisation festivals for classical music (Festival de la Musique Improvisée de Lausanne and EXTEMPORE Leipziger Improvisationsfestival für Alte Musik). The former funded a year of improvisation research into partimento for monodic instruments. Inspired by this on-going research Robert taught at the MentiParti summer course in Basel and was invited to teach and /or perform for example at the conferences Improvisation in Historical Styles: Performance, Pedagogy, and Research (Cedarville University) and Partimento -Realising its Potential (MDW, Vienna).

Nelson Lam studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue and sonata form at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. He has attended mentiParti four times and wrote the music for several animated short films and cine-concerts. He will be dealing with the classical style and sonata form.

Singer and theatre educationist MAS, specialized in musical stage projects. At “mentiParti 2021”, we will play with stories which we tell with or without sound from a piano (or other instruments). Also, we will create and set a small “mentiParti” theater play on demand.

Dipl. Sängerin und Theaterpädagogin MAS mit Spezialgebiet musikalische Bühnenproduktionen.
An der mentiParti spielen wir mit Geschichten, die wir mit und ohne Töne am Klavier (oder sonst einem Instrument) erzählen. Falls gewünscht, erfinden und inszenieren wir ein kleines mentiParti-Theaterstück.