Marino Formenti, pianist, performer, conductor, composer, has been lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “a Glenn Gould for the 21st Century”. ARTFORUM praised his “most cathartic work”.

Formenti’s manifold music itinerary seems to reveal first of all a kind of restless need to discover: a quest that lead him to conceive radically new concert formats and art/music performances.
His work has been labeled by the press as: “revolutionary”, “visionary,” “radical”, “mesmerizing”.

His performances include own compositions and/or improvisations, revealing interpretations of contemporary works of others and quite radical reflections on classical music masterpieces.
In more recent projects he addresses non-classical forms of music as well, including collaborations with hip-hop-artists and diverse non-Western musicians.

He is acknowledged in the art world as a creator of performances and sound/music installations.

In quite groundbreaking piano recitals (“Kurtag’s Ghosts”, “Liszt Inspections”, “Torso”) Marino Formenti creates a “stream of consciousness” (The San Francisco Chronicle) between works, ages and cultures in a sort of continuous flow. 
This radical approach has been presented a.o. at Lincoln Center New York, Lucerne Festival, Wigmore Hall London, Konzerthaus Vienna.
Joshua Kosman (The San Francisco Chronicle) stated: “What James Joyce did for the novel, Formenti seems intent ondoing for the piano recital. The results were unforgettable”.
“Liszt Inspections” was labeled among the “Best Performances of the New York Times 2015″ and the “Best Recordings of The New Yorker 2014″.

Beyond the concert form he created fairly more radical performances in form and approach:

NOWHERE (Berlin Festival, TIME SPANS New York, Gulbenkian Foundation Lisboa, Triennale Milano, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Steirischer Herbst Graz a.o.).
This durational performance (up to four weeks long) is as thoroughgoing and immersive as it can be. The pianist performs, lives, sleeps, eats several weeks long uninterruptedly in one and the same space, never leaves it.
The performance is open to the public and broadcasted on a 24/7 internet streaming.

In MA MORT (Vienna Art Week 2018, Galerie Krinzinger) Formenti performs the same short piece (“Meditation sur ma Mort Future” by Baroque composer J.J. Froberger) for hours, blindfolded and gradually disappearing.

ONE TO ONE is a 2-hours-long – or longer – exclusively private musical rendezvous with one visitor.
Pianist and guest become increasingly partners in this each time different and deeply intimate performance.
(Art Basel, Berlin Art Week, Musikverein Vienna, MEC Los Angeles, Steirischer Herbst Graz a.o.)

The ONE TO ONE principle was later expanded up to a series of full-day-blind-dates of 18 hours each with an unknown visitor in SEVEN STUDIES OF COMMUNICATION AND MUSICIANSHIP at the Haubrok Foundation in Berlin.
The music installation SELBER KÜNSTLER (“You are the Artist”) was made with the voices of the visitors and presented in a show along with Christian Marclay, Santiago Sierra a.o.

TIME TO GATHER is a recital of a special kind, without the invisible wall between pianist and audience, without a set program, without a predictable ending. 
People can interact with the pianist and choose what to listen, they can also play with him or instead of him.
(Berlin Festival, Vienna Konzerthaus, MEC Los Angeles, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires a.o.)

In I’M NOT YOUR ITALIANO (Bersalia Torino 2018) – an homage to African American writer James Baldwin – Marino lives and makes music with immigrants and asylum seekers of Italy, questioning cultural and musical common denominators and/or irreconcilable differences.

In the music movie SCHUBERT UND ICH Formenti works with five non-musicians of different age and background; they rehearsal and perform Franz Schubert’s songs, away from the sometimes polished rendering of the classical world.
The film has been nominated for the Austrian Film Award 2014.

In TRIESTERSTRASSE 66 (2022) Marino spent one month in a large community building in Graz, Austria, living, playing music and exchanging life and music thoughts with all people of different culture, age and background.
In this performance, a music party is conceived together and at eye level and celebrated at the end of the month. A “Universal Declaration of Musical Rights” is written.

For the Arnold-Schönberg-Birth-Year 2024 he will be on the streets of Vienna with a piano and a camera in order to fact-check Schönberg’s hope ” that one day people know my melodies and whistle them on the street”.

Marino Formenti has appeared as a soloist or conductor at the international festivals of Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh, Schleswig-Holstein, Ravinia and Aspen – as well as at David Geffen Hall in New York, Philharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Disney Hall in Los Angeles, Wigmore Hall London, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Philharmonie in St. Petersburg, Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

He has been Artist in Residence at Lincoln Center New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Pèlerinages Festival in Weimar along with Sir Andras Schiff, BeethovenFest in Bonn 2020 for the 250th Birth-Year-Celebrations of the composer.

As an artist he is guest of important art institutions and festivals, such as Palais de Tokio in Paris, MUMOK, KHM and Albertina in Vienna, Art Basel, the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisboa, the Onassis Foundation in Athens, Berlin Art Week, Vienna Art Week, Triennale Milano, Biennale Sion, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, MADRE and Fondazione Nitsch in Napoli, Portikus in Frankfurt.

His orchestra engagements as a soloist have included performances with the New York Philharmonics, the Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Radio France, the RSO Wien, together with conductors Franz Welser-Möst, Gustavo Dudamel, Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ingo Metztmacher, Peter Eötvos among others.

On invitation by pianist Maurizio Pollini, he collaborated as a conductor with him at Teatro la Scala in Milan, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Parco della Musica in Rome.
Furthermore he conceived and conducted projects at Musikverein Wien, Konzerthaus Wien, ODEON Wien, Ravenna Festival, Wien Modern, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, MEC Los Angeles, Young Euro Classics Berlin, Biennale Salzburg a.o.

Among his musical partners were Gidon Kremer, Lars Vogt, Tabea Zimmermann, Nicolas Altstaedt, Jörg Widmann, Caroline Widmann, Barbara Hannigan, Emmanuel Pahud, composer-performer Olga Neuwirth, actor Ulrich Matthes a.o.

In the art world he collaborated a.o. 2022 on a durational performance together with painter Georg Baselitz (Albertina/Wien Modern 2023).

He also collaborated with Stephen Prina (Art Basel 2014), Florian Pumhösl (MUMOK and Art Basel), Alex Cecchetti (Palais de Tokio Paris) or with the collective project LAX BAR (Wiener Festwochen/MAK).
For the Museum der Moderne Salzburg he conceived 2022 a durational performance on David Tudor (TO OUTTUDOR TUDOR). For the MUMOK Vienna he created the installation and CD NIGHT STUDIES.

2022 he worked together with filmmaker Michael Haneke and dedicated him the performance 71 FRAGMENTS (Musikverein Wien/Filmmuseum).

in the theater and performance world he worked as well with Rodrigo Garcia (Festival d’Automne Paris, Berliner Festspiele), Tim Etchells/Forced Entertainment (Volksbühne Berlin), Kris Verdonck (Schouwburg Amsterdam), Silvia Costa (Festival d’Automne Paris), Ann Liv Young (Brut Wien) Philipp Gehmacher (TQW Vienna) a.o.

He closely worked together with some of the greatest composers of our time, such as György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, Luciano Berio, Salvatore Sciarrino, Olga Neuwirth, Bernhard Lang, Georg Friedrich Haas, Beat Furrer, Klaus Lang a.o.

With Marina Rosenfeld he frequently collaborates on the project DEATHSTAR (New York, Donaueschingen, Frankfurt, Athens, Sion a.o.).

He has worked with German-Nigerian hip-hop-star MEGALOH, the Viennese-Turkish hip-hop-duo ESRAP, Italian progressive rock icon Franz di Cioccio of PFM; and with artists from Morocco, Nigeria, Afghanistan, China and other backgrounds.

He is teacher-conductor of the ENM Ensemble of the Mozarteum University in Salzburg.
He gave piano and contemporary music master classes at Manhattan School of New York, Akademie Basel, HMTM München, KUG Graz, MUK Vienna.

He gave Contemporary Performance and Art Performance master classes at HFMT Cologne, MDW Vienna, HKB Bern a.o.
At Columbia University New York he was Keynote Speaker at the Transformative Learning Conference 2019 as creator of “systemic performances”.

For his musical achievements he was awarded with the Belmont-Prize 2009 of the Forberg-Schneider-Stiftung in München.

(January 2024. Please don’t bring any changes without permission).