MUSICIAN, MUSICOLOGIST & CULTURAL OPERATOR
Music as a meeting of places, stories and cultures.
I am a musicologist and musician from Calabria. After years of travelling around the world, I chose to return and make my home in my native region.
My musical journey spans a wide range of experiences and repertoires. In recent years, my focus has been on early music — Renaissance music and medieval liturgical repertoires — and the modal musical traditions of the Mediterranean.
Calabria lies at the heart of my interests: a borderland that has been a place of passage and a bridge between East and West for millennia.
The lyra, my instrument of choice, brings these threads together: centuries of history, modal repertoires and musical connections linking Calabria to the eastern Mediterranean.
A journey through research, musical practice and encounters, with Calabria as both a starting point and a place to return to.
I was born in Catanzaro and attended the Bernardino Telesio classical secondary school in Cosenza. My journey then took me across Italy, Europe and the United States. Catanzaro, Cosenza, Trento, Milan, Paris, Dresden and Seattle are the cities I have called home, before choosing to return to Calabria.
My education brings together social sciences, music and the humanities. I earned a double degree in Sociology from the universities of Trento and Dresden, an academic diploma in Music, Science and Sound Technology in Vibo Valentia, and a Master of Arts in Italian Studies from the University of Washington in Seattle, where I also taught.
In Milan, I studied viola da gamba with Silvia De Rosso and historical counterpoint with Antonio Polignano. Musical practice goes hand in hand with research: my doctoral work at KU Leuven focuses on Giandomenico Martoretta’s first book of madrigals, examining its musical, textual and social dimensions. I am also currently pursuing a doctorate in artistic research at the Conservatory of Cosenza, focusing on the lyra between Calabria and the Mediterranean.
My interests span Renaissance music, medieval liturgical repertoires and the modal musical traditions of the Mediterranean. The lyra is central to this exploration, both as a living instrument and as a link between Calabria and the eastern Mediterranean. My artistic projects include Kalophonia, the Società della Lira and I Cammini della lira.
I also work on Calabrian cultural history, dialect poetry and Italo-Greek musical traditions. I have published I fatti di la storia. Due secoli di poesia e protesta sociale in Calabria and contributed to studies on Byzantine chant and Martoretta. Alongside my artistic and musicological work, I teach in secondary education and take part in cultural initiatives in Calabria.
Early music, oral traditions and encounters between musicians from different places.
Mother · Places · Language
With Anna Maria Civico
A musical and poetic journey between Pier Paolo Pasolini and early musical traditions, conceived with Anna Maria Civico. Voice and lyra bring together poetry, oral traditions and sacred music, following three threads: the mother, marginal places and language, from dialects to sacred languages.
Project websiteA transnational collective
Lyra and voice
A transnational collective of Calabrian musicians and international guests. Southern Italian repertoire blends with the traditions of the artists involved, including collaborations with Janne Suits from Estonia, Nagme Yarkin, Murat Yerden and Rui Aziz. I play lyra and sing in the project.
Italy and Cyprus in the Renaissance
Research and musical practice
An encounter between musicians and research traditions exploring cultural exchanges between Italy and Cyprus in the sixteenth century. The project developed in Nicosia explores Giandomenico Martoretta’s third book of madrigals and the Cypriot Canzoniere, combining early music performance with creative responses to the texts.
Amedeo Fera: bass viola da gamba and politiki lyra; Simona Gatto: voice and percussion; Eleonora Aleotti: voice and flutes; Carlo Cresci: Renaissance lute; Gerasimos Papadopoulos: voice and oud.
Byzantine musical tradition
A study and research ensemble
An ensemble bringing together musicians and scholars with an interest in Byzantine musical traditions. The study of sources and the practice of chant sustain a shared journey of research and interpretation, taking shape in concerts, workshops and encounters dedicated to this musical heritage.
Project websiteViol consort
Renaissance and Baroque repertoire
A viol consort devoted to Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. The dialogue between instruments brings out the interplay of voices and musical lines, with ensemble playing centred on mutual listening and the tonal nuances of the viola da gamba.
Voice, lyra and soundscape design
With Anna Maria Civico and Fausto Caricato
Inspired by Enotri, published by Rubbettino with photographs by Biagio Tassone, Oenotria brings together Fausto Caricato’s soundscape design, Anna Maria Civico’s archaic voice and the evocative power of Amedeo Fera’s lyra.
The project takes as its starting point the sparse, fragmentary traces of the Oenotrian language and the universal theme of weaving. Numerical matrices governing the interlacing of warp and weft were used to generate a melody, entrusted to the voice. Around this melodic core unfolds a creative process of sound design and instrumental improvisation.
The book · RubbettinoMerak M.A.L.L. · Artist residency
Wouter Vandenabeele: violin; Francesca Manoccio: viola; Fabiano Perrupato: bass; Amedeo Fera: politiki lyra.
A musical collaboration with Merak M.A.L.L. for the artist residency Scanderbeide. An international collective of musicians joined a team of Italian literature scholars to create music for a recitation of Margherita Sarrocchi’s early seventeenth-century epic poem about the Albanian hero Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg.
The music draws inspiration from the oral traditions of southern Albania, Southern Italy and Calabria’s Arbëreshë communities, bringing the literary text into dialogue with different musical languages.
Tarantella PowerMonasterace
Marcel PérèsOld Roman chant
Quartetto AreaSudTraditional music of Southern Italy
Historical inquiry and musical practice: three interconnected strands of my work.
Musicology · KU Leuven
I study the first book of madrigals by the Calabrian composer Giandomenico Martoretta, published in 1548. My research brings together music, texts and social contexts, exploring cultural exchanges in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean.
Artistic research · Conservatory of Cosenza
My additional doctoral research focuses on the lyra and the connections between Calabria and the Mediterranean. Instrumental practice and the exploration of repertoire go hand in hand with research into the instrument’s histories and cultural contexts.
My blog on the Calabrian lyraStudies and performance
I study Italo-Greek Byzantine chant, confraternal repertoires and Renaissance polyphony from a performance perspective. Research into sources intertwines with singing and the exploration of ways to interpret these repertoires.
Modality as Practice in Mediterranean Lira Traditions: The Kalabrian Case in Comparative Perspective.
Amedeo Fera. In 2nd International Conference on Arts and Education: Creativity, Heritage & Art Education in the Age of Technology. Book of Proceedings. University of Arts, 2026, pp. 887–94.
Le Sacrae Cantiones di Giandomenico Martoretta. Contestualizzazione storico-culturale con trascrizioni musicali dai libri parte originali.
Edited by Amedeo Fera, Laura Gallo and Giuseppe Sanfratello. Italian and English edition. Euracus, 2026.
Between Cyprus and Venice: Giandomenico Martoretta’s Greek madrigal as a symbol of double cultural affiliation
Amedeo Fera. Philomusica on-line, 24/2 (2025), pp. 57–80. Published online on 12 February 2026. DOI: 10.13132/1826-9001/24.2440.
Read on Philomusica on-line ↗Il suono evocato
Amedeo Fera. In Delia Dattilo (ed.), Ēchos. Le dimensioni dell’ascolto. Le Pecore Nere, 2025.
Musica bizantina italo-greca
Edited by Amedeo Fera and Giuseppe Sanfratello. Introduzione e trascrizioni dal codice Messan. gr. 129 della biblioteca del SS. Salvatore di Messina. Euracus, 2024.
University of Catania · publication record ↗Bronze chalcophones in Southern Italy Iron Age: a mark of identity?
Amedeo Fera and Carmelo Colelli. In Identity and Connectivity, proceedings of the 16th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology. Archaeopress, 2013.
I fatti di la storia. Due secoli di poesia e protesta sociale in Calabria
Amedeo Fera. Foreword by Pasquino Crupi. Pellegrini, 2010.
Research, singing and participation reconnecting people, memory and place.
Through the Consorzio Musicisti Calabresi, a cultural association active since 2007, I promote initiatives bringing together musical research, learning and participation. A central focus is community engagement through confraternal singing: opportunities to rediscover and pass on local repertoires through shared voices and encounters between generations.
Santa Caterina sullo Ionio · 22–24 August 2025
A residential workshop exploring local vocal practices and ritual memory. Listening to tradition bearers, learning songs and sharing a final performance brought musical research into dialogue with collective learning and community life.
Explore the workshopDavoli Superiore · Since 3 June 2026
A project with the parish choir of Davoli Superiore to revive the sung Office of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. An 1844 devotional booklet found in the parish provides a starting point for sharing and practising part of the village’s musical and religious heritage.
Explore the projectSanta Caterina sullo Ionio · 25 July 2026
A conference at RSA La Rinascita bringing together scholars, musicians, local tradition bearers and representatives of Calabrian and Corsican confraternities. It explores shared singing as a resource for passing on memory, fostering participation and strengthening social ties, with attention to inland and marginal areas.
Programme and further informationEncounters between musicians, researchers, instrument makers and local communities: workshops, residencies and concerts bringing the lyra into contemporary musical practice.
Explore the initiativeStudy and listening sessions on polyvocal singing and “all’aria nova” repertoires, connecting research, musical practice and the memory of places.
Explore the initiativeFor concerts, cultural projects and research collaborations, get in touch by email or find me on Facebook.
