Amalia is a pianist, specialized in contemporary music. She is also a painter working primarily in oil on canvas, whose pictorial research explores surrealistic and horror-inspired themes. Born in Milan (Italy), she lives and works between her hometown and Porto Valtravaglia.
Born in Milan, Italy.
Resides and works in Milan, Italy.
Biography:
Music
Born in Milan, Amalia Castoldi began studying piano at the age of 17. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Piano at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan (2023) and subsequently completed her Master’s degree at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Como (2024).
Since 2019 she has been enrolled at the Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo, where she pursued advanced studies in piano with Giovanni Doria Miglietta (until 2025) and, from 2023 to 2025, specialized in contemporary piano with Emanuele Arciuli. In September 2025 she has been admitted to the Postgraduate Specialization Course in Instrumental Music Heritage (3rd cycle, university system) at the same institution, with a focus on contemporary solo piano, under the guidance of Emanuele Arciuli, Nicolas Hodges, Ralph van Raat, and Maki Namekawa. She also attends chamber music courses with Trio di Parma and Trio Debussy.
Amalia has always had a profound interest in contemporary and twentieth-century music. Starting from the 2023 academic year, she began to specialize in this field. She attended a seminar held by Professor Giuseppe Leanza at the Milan Conservatory on the analysis of Boulez’s Third Sonata, and took part in contemporary piano masterclasses with Francesco Prode. In 2023 and 2024 she was the pianist of the “Laboratorio ’900” ensemble at the Conservatory of Como. In 2025 she took part in the masterclass and concerts of the “Time of Music” festival in Finland, collaborating with Mark Knoop (piano) and Matthew Shlomowitz (composition). She premiered the Bach Studies written for her by composer Ido Akov in 2025. She collaborates with American composer Brady Wolff, whose works she has performed in their Italian premieres. She premiered the chamber works Intermezzo (2023, for two cellos and quintet) and Locura (2024, for triple trio) by Lorenzo Taroni, as well as Echi (2023, for trio) by Emanuele Venturini.
She has attended many piano and contemporary music masterclasses with renowned international pianists including Clive Britton, Roberto Prosseda, Carlo Balzaretti, Roberto Plano, Paolo Gilardi, Giovanni Bellucci, Maria Grazia Bellocchio, Joonas Ahonen, Francesco Prode and Andrea Lucchesini. She has also taken chamber music masterclasses with Trio Kanon, Tommaso Lonquich and Marion Reinhard. In the 2019/20 academic year she attended the annual “Arrau Piano Surgery” masterclass held by Clive Britton at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado.
Amalia has been awarded prizes in several national and international competitions. In 2024 she won First Prize (99/100) in the Chamber Music section and Second Prize (96/100) in the Piano section at the VIII International Competition “Città di Alessandria.” The following year, at the XIII National Competition “Città di Bardolino,” she won First Prize (96/100) in the Piano category. Also in 2025 she placed third in the final of the 23rd International Piano Competition “Maria Giubilei,” in the section dedicated to contemporary music.
She has performed as a soloist at numerous festivals throughout Italy and abroad, including several editions of Piano City Milano, Piano City Trieste at the Piccoli Musici School in Trieste, the “Flying Notes” festival organized by Fazioli, Piano Days in Trieste, the “Summer Music Festival” organized by Suoni D’Autore, the summer festival “Musica d’Estate” organized in Bardonecchia by the Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo, the “Piano Estense” festival in Ferrara, the “Tucogiò Piano Festival” in Treviso, the “Time of Music Festival” in Finland, “Piano Lab” in Apulia, and Piano City Lecce.
She has also given solo and chamber recitals at “Casa Boschi di Stefano” and the Casa della Memoria in Milan, at the Auditorium of the Revoltella Museum in Trieste, and at the regional headquarters of RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia in Trieste. She has performed in the “Giovani Talenti” season at the Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso in Imperia, and in the “diCHIARAzione” concert season in Milan. She was selected for a recital dedicated to Béla Bartók, organized by Piano Link for the Anniver…Series season.
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. In 2025 she was interviewed by Story Time, the podcast of Radio Canale Italia.
Art
Amalia Castoldi is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice embraces both music and visual arts. As a painter, she works primarily with oil on canvas, as well as graphite and charcoal on paper. Trained as a pianist, she specializes in contemporary repertoire, and her dual background informs the conceptual foundation of her artistic research.
She first approached painting as a child, starting with highly realistic and detailed life studies. From the age of ten, she pursued her passion with consistency, experimenting with drawing and attending a manga drawing course. During high school, she studied drawing more formally, although much of her artistic development has been self-taught.
Castoldi specializes in oil on canvas, with a marked focus on themes related to surrealism and horror. Her style combines elements of liminal space aesthetics, surrealism, and horror imagery. As both a pianist and a painter, she does not assign descriptive titles to her works, preferring to catalogue them with opus numbers, as in musical compositions. This choice reflects her conviction that, although figurative, her works transcend representation and function as expressions of specific emotions translated into form and color.
Her secondary production, grouped in Opus 6 and 8, merges painting and music: each canvas originates as a visual transposition of a piano piece, based on a harmonic and structural analysis of the composition. The resulting performance takes the form of a concert in which each musical work is paired with its corresponding painting. This project was first presented at the Giovani Talenti Festival (Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso, Imperia, Italy, February 26, 2023) and later at the headquarters of RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia in Trieste (September 20, 2024), in an expanded version enriched by a light design component.
She has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions that have shaped her artistic path. In 2021 she was a finalist in the themed competition Radici and took part in the group exhibition Ti racconto, vuoi? at the Exhibition Hall of the Cultural Center of San Giuliano Milanese, curated by La corte degli artisti. In 2022 she exhibited in several group shows: Croma at the Multipurpose Center San Giovanni a Incarico (Rome), curated by Irene Carlevale; London Calling at Badiani Art Space (London), curated by Art à porter; and Arte e moda at Arcadia Art Gallery (Milan).
In 2023 she presented for the first time her performance Resonant Paintings at the Giovani Talenti Festival in Imperia (Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso), combining piano and painting in a single experience. That same year she took part in the live painting competition Art Battle in Turin, organized by Art à porter.
In 2024 her work was included in the online exhibition In Conversation With…, curated by Maria Ilochi for The Gallery by Mui (Washington DC); in the group show OPEN ABOUT IDENTITY at East Quai (Watchet, UK); and in the International Art and Design Exhibition organized by V-Art Union (online, Belgium), curated by Jean Janssens. That same year she presented an expanded version of Resonant Paintings, incorporating light design, at RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia in Trieste.
In March 2024, Creo Literary Journal dedicated an article to her and featured her painting Op. 5 no. 24 (oil on board, 30 × 24 cm, 2024) on its cover, awarding it First Prize for Best Painting. The same work appeared on the cover of Art Magazineium (Issue 39, May 2024), which also published a catalog of her works. In May 2024, her paintings were featured in Grim & Gilded (Issue Twenty), accompanied by a short biography, and in Cool Beans Lit (Vol. I, Issue 4), paired with a short story. That summer, her work was published in Passengers Journal (Vol. V, Issue 3), alongside a biography in the visual artists section. In July 2024, her work was included in LMNL SPCS, accompanying the poem Oh, Mama, Mama by Kendyl Harmeling.
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
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.
26 February 2023: Resonant Paintings (solo performance for piano and paintings), Giovani Talenti Festival, Teatro del Mutuo Soccorso, Imperia, 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 (online), 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 (online). Curated by Jean Janssens.
20 September 2024: Resonant Paintings (solo performance for piano, paintings, and lights), RAI Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Headquarters, Trieste, Italy.
Selected press & interviews:
Creo Literary Journal, March 2024
Article about me with the publication of my painting Op. 5 no. 24 (oil on wood panel, 30 x 24 cm, 2024) on the cover.
1st Prize for Best Painting.
Publisher: Creo Arts
Author: Ashley Gantz, PhD
Art Magazineium, Issue 39, May 2024
Catalog featuring some of my paintings, with Op. 5 no. 24 (oil on wood panel, 30 x 24 cm, 2024) on the cover.
Curated by: Artmagazineium.com
Issue Twenty, Grim & Gilded, May 2024
Short biography and publication of a painting.
Curated by: Carter Brighton
Cool Beans Lit, Summer 2024, Vol. I Issue 4
Publication of a painting accompanying a short story.
Editor: Lauren Avedis
Art Editor: J.L. Stagner
https://www.coolbeanslit.com/issue4
Passengers Journal, Volume V Issue 3, 2024
Publication of a painting and biography in the Visual Artists section.
Editor-in-chief: Anna Genevieve Winham
Visual Arts Editor: Lauren Viar
https://www.passengersjournal.com/volume-5-issue-3
LMNL SPCS, July 2024
Publication on the website alongside the poem Oh, Mama, Mama by Kendyl Harmeling.
Curated by Ellis Cavalier and Kate William
http://liminalspacesmagazine.com/oh-mama-mama/
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