Flavio villani
biography
Flavio Villani is an Italian–New Zealand pianist who made Auckland his home after moving from Italy in 2008. He completed a Bachelor of Piano Performance with Matteo Napoli at the Conservatory “G. Martucci,” alongside a Bachelor of IT in Salerno in 2007. After working in IT in Barcelona, he moved to New Zealand to pursue his musical career, completing a Master of Piano Performance with first-class honours at the University of Auckland under Stephen De Pledge.
Flavio is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Waikato, supervised by Katherine Austin, with additional research undertaken at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London with Professor David Dolan. His doctoral work explores the role of improvisation within Classical music learning, performance, and interpretation — reviving approaches that were foundational to musicians up until the late nineteenth century. His research investigates how creative exploration can deepen understanding, embodiment, and expressive agency in modern classical practice.
He has performed widely as a soloist and chamber musician in Italy, Spain, North Macedonia, New Zealand, Australia, California and Texas. His festival appearances include the Venice Biennale, Pianino Festival (Mallorca), Lamezia Classica, The Gurwitz (USA), Auckland Arts Festival, and Christopher Classics (NZ).
performer, pianist, composer
Flavio’s preparation for his first solo performance with orchestra was documented in the internationally acclaimed biopic "Crossing Rachmaninoff", following his performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2 in Calabria in 2015. He later appeared as soloist with orchestras including the Orchestra of CalArts (Los Angeles), the New Plymouth Orchestra, Taranaki Symphony, Bay of Plenty Symphonia, Hawke’s Bay Orchestra, and the Auckland Symphony Orchestra, performing concertos by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Addinsell (Warsaw Concerto), and Saint-Saëns (Carnival of the Animals).
arts and collaborations
Flavio is active in cross-disciplinary collaborations, having created and performed original music for theatre (Human with Dust Palace, The_Kiss at UCOL, When the Rain Stops Falling at Herald Theatre), cinema (The Heart Dances, Llueven Vacas, Crossing Rachmaninoff), and television (Anchor Milk Campaign).
He continues to develop work that brings together classical performance, improvisation, and visual art, including recent collaborations with New Zealand artist Star Gossage, baritone saxophonist Michael Jamieson and violinist and UC Head of Performance Mark Menzies.
pedagogy
A dedicated teacher, Flavio has explored a wide range of pedagogical approaches, drawing on memorisation strategies, body percussion, the Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method. His students have gained diplomas and university places in Auckland and Melbourne. He is a Performance Fellow at the University of Waikato, and he has been invited to give masterclasses at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Lamezia Terme), Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok), Victoria University (Wellington), and schools across Italy and Spain.
He is the founder and Director of L'Accademia Music School in Auckland, where he teaches piano and curates a wide range of performances, events, and collaborations.