Biography

A precocious talent, she began improvising at the piano at the age of three, revealing extraordinary creativity and musical aptitude from early childhood.

A representative of the Neapolitan Piano School, she made her debut at thirteen at the Amalfi International Festival, at the invitation of the school's leading figure Vincenzo Vitale, and at fourteen she won the La Spezia Prize. In the same period she made her debut at the Aterforum in Rimini, as part of the Sagra Musicale Malatestiana, performing Liszt's La Campanella and Feux follets together with Prokofiev's Visions fugitives. Her performances won over the critics, so much so that the musicologist A. Cavicchi wrote in Il Resto del Carlino: "A very young virtuoso with most rare technical and musical gifts".

At the age of eighteen, she had a fateful encounter with Aldo Ciccolini, who would publicly describe her as "an exceptional personality with extraordinary pianistic means".

She completed her advanced studies with Ciccolini in Paris and at the "Lorenzo Perosi" International Academy (first edition), where she graduated with the highest marks ("Excellent").

Martha Argerich, too, has praised her interpretive gifts, especially her improvisations.

In 2011 she dedicated Pour jouer to Ciccolini himself, the only work in the world written for the Maestro, later published on CD and as a score: Ciccolini called it "a truly monumental work" and its author "a Maestra!". In 2014 she performed it in the Maestro's presence in a much-applauded recital at Palazzo Serra di Cassano in Naples.

Since the age of thirteen she has won many international scholarships and prestigious piano prizes, including the F. Liszt Prize of the European Liszt Centre, the A. Speranza Prize in Taranto, the International Piano Competition in Rome and the plaque of the Senate of the Italian Republic. More recently she won five Global Music Awards in the United States for her live performances of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit and for Pour jouer – Virtuoso Piano Works, a monographic album of her own compositions and improvisations that won the acclaim of American critics: "She has created a multidimensional art in which music and life merge… To describe the originality of Hologram, think of Alkan, Godowsky, and other post-Lisztian composers for whom too much was barely enough. In this case, Mariani's use of virtuosity is almost completely seamless… Her 25-minute improvisation, a super-variation… this gesture must be unique in music history" (Huntley Dent, Fanfare, Issue 42:2, 2018).

She has published some thirty musical compositions, distributed worldwide by Hal Leonard. Her discography includes ten albums recorded for Bongiovanni, Classic Voice, Musica – Zecchini and, since 2017, for the Osaka-based label Da Vinci Classics. Almost all of her recording projects include compositions of her own.

Schumann is a true leitmotif in her life. She performs his complete piano works, and her interpretations are greatly admired in leading musical and publishing circles, to the point that she has been called "Schumann's closest relative" (Huntley Dent, Fanfare, Issue 42:2, 2018) and, more recently, with reference to the album Etica, estetica. Il sentimento, "quite the Schumannian" (Scott Noriega, Fanfare, Issue 50:1, 2026). In many piano competitions her Kreisleriana received exceptional praise from great masters, notably Maria Tipo. As a tribute to Schumann she wrote Kinderliana and the Pezzi Sinfonici, recorded in 2019 and 2023 respectively. Her latest album, Etica, estetica. Il sentimento (Da Vinci Classics, 2025), is devoted to the German composer. Finally, the director and publisher Elisabetta Sgarbi chose her to perform Schumann's music in her latest film, L'isola degli idealisti.

She has always performed as a soloist and with orchestra. In a brief but much-appreciated period in her youth she also played chamber music, at the invitation of the Trio di Trieste and of Maureen Jones, both great admirers of hers. She has performed in the United States and in Europe, touring Belgium, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Austria and Germany. She has given solo recitals for the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Centro para la Difusión de la Música Contemporánea, the Swedish Government (Axel Munthe Foundation), the Società dei Concerti in Milan, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste (RAI – UWC), the Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, the Liszt Celebrations at Villa d'Este, the Teatro Ghione in Rome and the symphonic season of the Teatro Goldoni in Livorno, among others. In her home city of Naples she has performed as a soloist for the Scarlatti and Thalberg associations, at the RAI Auditorium and in the Sala Grande of the Naples Conservatory (I Venerdì Musicali).

In 2025 her performances of Chopin's Concerto No. 2, on tour in Italian theatres (Fondazione Teatro Goldoni in Livorno, Padua, Teatro Diana in Naples, Festival della Scuola Napoletana at Villa Campolieto in Ercolano), and her much-applauded solo piano recitals (Concerto Piano Festival in Paris, Villa Solomei Festival of the Cucinelli Foundation, Circolo degli Esteri in Rome, Fondazione Istituto Liszt in Bologna) were received with unanimous triumph.

In 2026 her sensational recital at the "Autour du piano" festival in Cayeux-sur-Mer (Klassika International France) aroused immense enthusiasm among audience and critics alike. Her performance deeply struck the Dutch critic Willem Boone, who in De Nieuwe Muze called her "a true phenomenon" and "the surprise" of the festival: "a true tigress" who in Liszt's Sonata "made the piano rear up", playing "with phenomenal power and temperament". On that occasion she gave the world premiere of her composition Come l'onda, greeted with a standing ovation and described by Boone as "a real firework of almost ten minutes, with plenty of passion and pianistic display". The success of the concert was crowned by an interview for Pianistique.

As a performer of her own music she has appeared in Los Angeles, Paris, Munich (Gasteig), Milan and throughout Germany and France. In Italy she has presented her compositions on the stages of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples (Extra 2011 and 2012), the Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium for the Ravello Festival Foundation, the Conservatories of Naples and of Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Fondazione Teatro Goldoni in Livorno, among others.

Her recordings, concerts and compositions are broadcast, also live, with appearances on Piazza Verdi (Rai Radio 3), Primo Movimento, Musica Maestro (Radio 24 – Il Sole 24 Ore), Swiss Italian-language radio and television (RSI), Radio France, Bulgarian National Radio and Radio Clásica in El Salvador, as well as in the United States and Japan.

Her album Visions was named among the best recordings of 2021 by MusicWeb International, with a special mention for her piece Mediterranea, and was among the best classical releases on Spotify. Her recording of Brahms's Waltzes op. 39 has passed 47 million streams on Spotify.

"I have two languages, but a single idiom." Described as "a singular case in the music of the present" (Renzo Cresti) and as a "humanist of the Third Millennium" (Andrea Bedetti, Music Voice), since 2008 she has published seven works of fiction, which often intertwine with her music and her recordings. She has also won several literary prizes, and her writing appears in various anthologies.

For Mariani, music and literature draw on the same creative source: this is borne out by the albums Presenze and Riflessi, as well as by the pieces Hologram, La canzone di Pulcinella, Chef Tango, Fun Tango – Tre irradianti di un'unica matrice, Kinderliana and Nené Waltz, all of which have a literary counterpart.