California State University International Program Florence

Daniela Costa was born in Rome and studied piano with Sergio Cafaro at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory, composition with Gino Marinuzzi and musicology with Fedele d’Amico at the Institute of Music History at the University of Rome.

Thanks to a grant from the School of Music of Fiesole (Florence), she further focused her work in chamber music with Dario De Rosa. For three years she studied Lieder repertoire specializing in German Lied and French Chanson with Irwin Gage at the Zurich Musikhochschule, where she was awarded two scolarships from the Helvetic Confederation.

Daniela Costa performs primarily as an art-song accompanist for important musical institutions in Italy (Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Amici della Musica di Perugia, Amici della Musica di Firenze, among them) and internationally in various European countries, including Germany, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland. She has performed with such distinguished singers as Debora Beronesi, Nancy Gustafson, Maria Costanza Nocentini, and Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz.

She has also been featured on international radio stations: in Italy (Rai and Radio Vaticana), Belgium (BRT and RBTF), Germany (SDR) and Zimbabwe (Radio One). She recorded two world premier CDs for Nuova Era that were much acclaimed by the national and international press.

She is currently Professor of Italian Opera at California State University, Florence University of the Arts, Richmond University, and Smith College and she has lectured and performed at Georgetown University, Syracuse University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.

In January 2008 she was invited to give a series of Masterclasses on “Italian vocality and musical style” at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

Daniela Costa is co-director of the International Summer Music Festival “Notturni al Castello”.