Cinzia Gizzi

Cinzia Gizzi, pianist and composer, began to study classical music at the age of eight.
She first developed a passion for jazz music as a university student, after moving from her native town of Pescara, in the Abruzzo, to Rome, where she currently lives and works.
Since the late 1970s, early 1980s she has been playing for many years in jazz clubs in Rome, having the opportunity to play with many Italian musicians and also American artists touring in Italy including: Joe Newman, Harry Sweets Edison, Johnny Griffin, Wild Bill Davison, Al Cohn, Earl Warren, Eddie Lockjaw Davis, Robin Kenyatta, Pepper Adams, Hal Singer, Dusko Gojkovitch, Al Grey, George Masso, Benny Bailey, Jon Faddis, Tom Kirkpatrick, Jens Sondergard, The Lars Gullin Memorial Band, Tony Scott, Ray Mantilla and Keith Copeland, Eddie Henderson, Phil Woods and others.
In 1988 she won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston graduating with a Diploma in 1990.
During this period, she studied privately with Jakie Byard, in New York, and Charlie Banacos (Boston), with whom she continued to study for many years by correspondence.
She returned from the United States and recorded her first CD under her own name, beginning to appear leading various ensembles, from trio to sextet, while continuing to work as a sidewoman.
She also completed her classical piano studies, graduating as a private student from the Frosinone Conservatory of Music.
As leader of her own groups she has played at all the major Jazz Festivals in Italy, including.
Foggia, La Spezia, Bari, Fano, Pescara, Perugia, Sanremo, Comacchio, Roma, Bologna, Orvieto, Lanciano, Atessa, Trapani, San Severino, Guglionesi, Lanciano and others.
In 2001 was invited to perform at the Eurojazz Città del Messico and Festival del Centro Historico de la Ciudad de Mexico en Tlaxcala. Abroad she has performed also in Portugual, Poland, Brasil and Spain. She has played with the Santa Cecilia Symphonic Orchestra directed by Luciano Berio (1990, Auditorium Santa Cecilia, Rome), and in many radio and television programs.
In the 1995/96 academic year, she was the first woman in Italy to hold the chair of ’Jazz’ in Italian conservatories, at the Cilea Conservatory of Music in Reggio Calabria. She taught in various Italian conservatories (Trieste, Messina, Catania, L’Aquila, Latina, Roma) ending her teaching activity in 2022, at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music, in Rome.
Since 2003 she has written arrangements and conducted various conservatory ensembles in many Italian theaters, including Teatro Verdi (Trieste), Teatro Vittorio Emanuele (Messina, inaugurating the academic year for two years, in 2007 and 2008), Radio Vaticana (Rome), Complesso Monumentale di San Michele a Ripa (Rome), Scuderie Aldobrandine (Frascati), Mantova Jazz Festival.
She has conducted master classes, participated in musical analysis conferences and written articles and essays.
In 2016 she published the musical analysis book Arrangiatori Jazz, pagine d’autore in un percorso storico di analisi musicale, for the Aracne Editor, becoming director of the musical analysis series Il Suono e il Tempo, 7notelette/re, for the same Editor.
The second volume Arrangiatori Jazz II, pagine d’autore in un percorso storico di analisi musicale.
I contrappuntisti, was released in 2020.
The English version, by the author, was published in September 2024.
In 2017, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the XXVIII International Women’s Profile Award (Profilo Donna, Modena, Italy).
Ha realizzato la fotografia il fotografo Stefano Babic.

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