Amalia Castoldi is a multidisciplinary artist. Trained as a pianist, she specializes in contemporary music. As a painter, she works within a horror-surrealist aesthetic and is also active in intermedial projects combining music and painting.
Born in Milan, Italy.
Resides and works in Milan, Italy.
Biography
Born in Milan, Amalia Castoldi began studying piano at the late age of 17. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Piano at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan (2023), followed by a Master’s degree at the “G. Verdi” Conservatory in Como (2024). Since 2019, she has been studying at the Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo in the advanced piano course with Giovanni Doria Miglietta. From 2023 she has focused on contemporary music under the guidance of Emanuele Arciuli, and since October 2025 she has been enrolled in the Specialization Course in Instrumental Musical Heritage (third-level master’s degree, solo contemporary piano) in Pinerolo, studying with Emanuele Arciuli, Nicolas Hodges, Ralph van Raat, and Maki Namekawa.
She has premiered works for solo piano and ensemble by several composers, including I. Stölzel, J. Kleider, and S. Wu. In 2023 and 2024 she was the pianist of the contemporary music ensemble “Laboratorio ’900” at the Como Conservatory. In 2025 she took part in the “Time of Music Festival” in Finland, collaborating with Mark Knoop and Matthew Shlomowitz. She was selected for the artistic residency precept.concept.percept XV (Ljubljana, January–June 2026), which concluded at the 6th Bled Contemporary Music Week (Slovenia). She participated in the MIXTE Festival 2026 in Pau (France), collaborating with the ensemble Proxima Centauri. She will take part in the 2026 edition of the MIXTUR Festival in Barcelona in October.
She has attended masterclasses with Clive Britton (including his annual Arrau Piano Surgery), Roberto Prosseda, Carlo Balzaretti, Roberto Plano, Giovanni Bellucci, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Joonas Ahonen, Francesco Prode, and Andrea Lucchesini, as well as chamber music masterclasses with Trio Kanon, Tommaso Lonquich, and Marion Reinhard.
She has received awards in several national and international competitions, including first prize (99/100) in Chamber Music at the 8th International Music Competition “Città di Alessandria,” first prize (96/100) at the 13th “Città di Bardolino” Competition, third place in the final of the 23rd IMC “Maria Giubilei” (contemporary music section), first prize (97/100) at the 25th IMC Premio Lams Matera, and joint second prize (97/100) at the 11th IMC Artists Competition.
She has performed as a soloist at numerous festivals in Italy and abroad, including several editions of Piano City in Milan, Trieste, and Lecce, “Flying Notes” (Fazioli), Piano Days Trieste, “Summer Music Festival” (Suoni D’Autore), “Musica d’Estate” (Accademia di Pinerolo), “Piano Estense” in Ferrara, “Tucogiò Piano Festival” in Treviso, and “Piano Lab” in Puglia. She has given solo and chamber recitals at Casa Boschi di Stefano and Casa della Memoria in Milan, at the Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso in Imperia, for “diCHIARAzione” in Milan, and at the Castromediano Museum in Lecce. She was selected for a recital dedicated to Béla Bartók in the 2025 season of Piano Link in Milan.
In 2022, she recorded a commercial for DHL and FIAT, performing the first movement of Mozart’s Sonata K.331. In 2024, she was interviewed by RDE Radio in Trieste, and in 2025 by Story Time, a podcast by Radio Canale Italia.
Amalia Castoldi creates intermedia works developed in collaboration with a composer, where music, image, and painting are designed as parts of a single artwork. Each project includes a piece for piano and electronics, a video, and a painting, all conceived and created in an integrated way. These works take shape in live performances, accompanied by an exhibition of the paintings, creating an immersive audiovisual experience.
The intermedia works have been presented in several venues, including the RAI regional headquarters of Friuli Venezia Giulia (September 2024), the Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso in Imperia (February 2023), and the Teatro Sant’Andrea in Bergamo as part of the “Entropia” festival (November 2025).
Amalia Castoldi specializes in oil painting on canvas and wooden panels, with a strong focus on themes related to surrealism and horror. Her style combines elements of liminal space aesthetics, surrealism, and horror-inspired imagery.
The artist has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, as well as exhibition and performance projects in Italy and abroad, including “Ti racconto, vuoi?” (February–March 2021), “Croma” (May 2022), “London Calling” (June 2022), “Arte e moda” (September–October 2022), “Resonant Paintings” (February 2023), “Art Battle” (June 2023), “In Conversation With…” (March 2024), “OPEN ABOUT IDENTITY” (May–September 2024), “International Art and Design Exhibition” (June 2024), a new presentation of “Resonant Paintings” at the RAI regional headquarters of Friuli Venezia Giulia (September 2024), the Alfio Paris competition-exhibition (October 2025), “play: audio.image.exe” (November 2025), and “Assenza e Vuoto” (May 2026).
Her work has been published and awarded in international magazines and anthologies, including Creo Literary Journal (March 2024, 1st prize for best painting), Art Magazineium (May 2024), Issue Twenty: Grim & Gilded (May 2024), Cool Beans Lit (Summer 2024), Passengers Journal (2024), and LMNL SPCS (July 2024), with editorial and curatorial contributions by international authors and curators.
Artist’s statement
My artistic research moves through liminal spaces, horror, and contemporary surrealism. I am interested in suspended places, emotional emptiness, dreamlike atmospheres, and spaces outside of time. Horror cinema, backrooms aesthetics, and the works of Franz Kafka and H. P. Lovecraft strongly influence my visual language.
My practice develops through two connected directions: figurative oil painting and intermedial works combining video, painting, piano, and electronics. My paintings explore abandonment, suspension, and perceptual distortion, while the intermedial works are created through a symbiotic collaboration with a composer, where image, sound, and video are conceived together as a single experience.
I work with themes such as eating disorders, self-harm, depression, anxiety, social isolation, and distorted body perception. Starting from contemporary issues and emotional states, I try to represent these conditions at an unconscious and deeply material level through sound and image, transforming them into fragmented landscapes populated by bodies, creatures, and unsettling presences.
My aim is to create immersive experiences that allow the audience to physically and emotionally enter the work. I want to communicate visceral tension, empathy, and emotional suspension, while also evoking sensations of eternal peace and detachment from reality.
My works can take the form of collections of paintings, sometimes accompanied by audio recordings of my piano performances to be listened to while viewing the images. They can also become intermedial performances lasting around 45–50 minutes for piano, live electronics, video, and tape, often presented together with the exhibition of the paintings. These performances are usually developed using Isadora.
Resumè
Education/training:
2025 – ongoing
Post-graduate Specialist Courses in Music Performance – Solo Contemporary Piano
Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo – Pinerolo, Italy
Teachers: Emanuele Arciuli, Nicolas Hodges, Ralph van Raat, Maki Namekawa
2023 – 2025
Advanced Contemporary Piano Course
Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo – Pinerolo, Italy
Teacher: Emanuele Arciuli
2018 – 2025
Advanced Piano Course
Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo – Pinerolo, Italy
Teacher: Giovanni Doria Miglietta
2022 – 2024
Master’s Degree in Piano Performance (Second-cycle academic diploma)
Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” – Como, Italy
Degree awarded on: 4 March 2025
2019 – 2022
Bachelor’s Degree in Piano Performance (First-cycle academic diploma)
Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado – Milan, Italy
Degree awarded on: 28 October 2022
Residencies:
November 2025 – June 2026 – precept.concept.percept XIV, organized by [infra.norma.meta] (Amsterdam) in collaboration with the .abeceda Institute (Ljubljana). The residency will conclude at the 6th Bled Contemporary Music Week (Bled, Slovenia).
Selected exhibitions:
18 February – 4 March 2021:“Ti racconto, vuoi?” (group exhibition of finalist works from the themed contest “Radici”), Exhibition Hall, San Giuliano Milanese Cultural Centre, San Giuliano Milanese, Italy. Curated by La corte degli artisti.
6 – 15 May 2022:Croma (group exhibition), Centro Polivalente San Giovanni, Incarico, Rome, Italy. Curated by Irene Carlevale.
June 2022:London Calling (group exhibition), Badiani Art Space, London, United Kingdom. Curated by Art a porter.
September – October 2022:Arte e moda (group exhibition), Arcadia Art Gallery, Milan, Italy.
8 June 2023:Live painting “Art Battle”, Gianca Murazzi, Turin, Italy. Curated by Art a porter.
1 – 31 March 2024:In Conversation With… (group exhibition), The Gallery by Mui, Washington DC, USA. Curated by Maria Ilochi.
25 May – 2 September 2024:OPEN ABOUT IDENTITY (group exhibition), East Quai, Watchet, United Kingdom.
June 2024:International Art and Design Exhibition (group exhibition), V-Art Union, Belgium. Curated by Jean Janssens.
16 May 2026: “Assenza e Vuoto” (juried exhibition), Neutralis Spatio Galler, Dalmine Bergamo, Italy.
Selected performances
26 February 2023:Resonant Paintings (solo performance for piano and paintings), Giovani Talenti Festival, Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso, Imperia, Italy.
20 September 2024:Resonant Paintings (solo performance for piano, paintings, and lights), RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Headquarters, Trieste, Italy.
28 November 2025: Play: audio_image.exe (solo performance for piano, live eletronics, video), Teatro Sant’Andrea, Bergamo (Italy). As part of the Entropia 2025 series, organized by the Fondazione Lester.
Recitals and concerts:
28 June 2017 – Festival “Note in Volo” by Fazioli. Malpensa (Italy).
19 May 2018 – Piano City Milano 2018. Archivio di Stato, Milan (Italy).
19 December 2018 – Casa della Memoria, Milan (Italy)
26 April 2019 – Casa Boschi di Stefano, Milan (Italy)
31 May 2019 – Casa Boschi di Stefano, Milan (Italy)
8 June 2019 – Casa Boschi di Stefano, Milan (Italy)
30 June 2019 – (Chamber Music) Casa Boschi di Stefano, Milan (Italy)
19 May 2019 – PianoCity Milano 2019. BASE, Milan (Italy).
7 June 2019 – Cassano Magnago (Italy). 37th Edition of “Giovani Talenti” Festival
26 May 2019 – (chamber music) Milan (Italy). “diCHIARAzione” Festival
14 September 2019 – Scuola I Piccoli Musici, Trieste (Italy). PianoCity Trieste 2019
22 September 2024 – Auditorium Museo Revoltella, Trieste (Italy). Festival “Piano Days”
2 June 2025 – “Street Piano Tucogiò” Festival. Treviso (Italy).
22 June 2025 –Festival “Piano Estense”. Ferrara (Italy).
1–6 July 2025 – Time of Music Festival. Viitasaari (Finland)
16 July 2025 – Recital dedicated to Béla Bartók PianoLink Studios, Milan (Italy)
3 August 2025 – Chiesa Matrice, Ceglie Messapica (Italy). Piano Lab, La Ghironda APS
7 September 2025 – Concert Hall, Milano (Italia). Saccardo Residence
12 September 2025 – Palazzo Scarciglia, Lecce. Pianocity Lecce, Pianocity Lecce APS
14 Marzo 2026 – Museo Castromediano, Lecce (Italia). Musica al Castromediano, Associazione Mozart Lecce
19 – 26 June 2026 – Bled Contemporary Music Week 2026. Festival Hall, Bled (Slovenia)
3 – 7 July 2026 – MIXTE academy. Pau (France)
Selected press & interviews:
Creo Literary Journal, March 2024
1st Prize for Best Painting. Publisher: Creo Arts. Author: Ashley Gantz, PhD
Art Magazineium, Issue 39, May 2024
Curated by: Artmagazineium.com
Issue Twenty, Grim & Gilded, May 2024
Curated by: Carter Brighton
Cool Beans Lit, Summer 2024, Vol. I Issue 4
Editor: Lauren Avedis. Art Editor: J.L. Stagner.
Passengers Journal, Volume V Issue 3, 2024
Editor-in-chief: Anna Genevieve Winham. Visual Arts Editor: Lauren Viar.
LMNL SPCS, July 2024
Publication on the website alongside the poem Oh, Mama, Mama by Kendyl Harmeling.
Curated by Ellis Cavalier and Kate William
Radio Interviews:
14 November 2024
Interview by RDE Radio TV broadcasting, Trieste, Italy
28 July 2025
Interview with the editorial team of Story Time, podcast of Radio Canale Italia, Pero (MI), Italy
