Dr. Vanessa Tonelli
Visiting Assistant Professor
Bio
Dr. Tonelli received her PhD in Musicology with a Certificate in Gender Studies at Northwestern University. Her scholarly interests center on historical interactions between music, gender, and disability studies. Her primary research project traces the lives and significance of poor and orphaned female musicians of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Venetian charitable homes. Dr. Tonelli is particularly invested in practical applications of music research by means of restoring women's past works in modern performances. She recently has collaborated with historically informed ensembles, including Chicago’s Haymarket Opera Company, the Australian Chamber Choir, and Philadelphia’s La Tempesta di Mare Baroque Orchestra. These collaborative projects have featured revivals of fragmentary or forgotten compositions, informative pre-concert lectures, and a filmed documentary. She is also learning to play the historical trombone.
- PHD - Northwestern University (2022)
- MA - Michigan State University (2013)
- BM - New Mexico State University (2010)
Mus 307: History of Music I, Antiquity to Baroque
Mus 471: Seminar in Masterpieces of Music (Undergraduate Topics)
Mus 571: Seminar in Masterpieces of Music (Graduate Topics)
Mus 702: Bibliography for Music Research
Mus 703: Writing About Music
- “Making a Name in Music: Professional and Social Strategies of the Musicians at the Venetian Ospedali Maggiori” , Non-Elite Women’s Networks Across the Early Modern World, 2023,
- Le Muse in gara, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 2021
- Italian (Professional Working)