Elena Minetti

Elena Minetti, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow in Historical Musicology at the Department of Music, University of Kassel, where she has been working since May 2025. Her current research project, "Receiving – Re-constructing – Recomposing. Practices of Completing Opera Fragments from the Mid-19th to the Early 21st Century," is funded by the University's central research funding (ZFF) program "Pilot."

Dr. Minetti earned her doctorate in 2024 through a cotutelle arrangement between the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and Justus Liebig University Giessen. Her dissertation, "Schrift als Werkzeug: Schriftbildliche Operativität in Kompositionsprozessen früher musique mixte (1949–1959)" received significant recognition. Prior to her doctorate, she studied piano performance at the Istituto di Studi Superiori Musicali in Siena (2014–2019) and Musicology at the University of Bologna (2011–2017), where she completed bachelor's and master's theses focused on Hans Werner Henze's operas.

Dr. Minetti's research spans multiple interconnected areas within musicology. Her primary focus is on music history from the 19th to 21st centuries, with particular attention to sketch research and compositional processes, especially in music theater and electroacoustic music. She has developed expertise in letter research and the digital edition of postal documents, which informs her work on artistic networks. Additionally, she investigates the theory and history of musical writing, examining how notation functions as both a practical tool and a conceptual framework in composition. Her work in music education, particularly regarding music theater and piano music, demonstrates her commitment to applying scholarly insights to pedagogical contexts.

Her scholarly output reveals a consistent focus on the intersection of musical notation, compositional process, and historical context. Through detailed examinations of works by composers such as Bruno Maderna, Mauricio Kagel, and Daphne Oram, she has illuminated how composers use written forms to conceptualize and realize their musical ideas. Her research particularly emphasizes the period from the 1940s to 1960s, a crucial era for the development of electronic and electroacoustic music, while also connecting these historical practices to contemporary approaches in music composition and notation.

Dr. Minetti's exceptional scholarly contributions have been recognized with prestigious awards:

• The Herta & Kurt Blaukopf Prize of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (2024)
• The Award of Excellence of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (2024)

As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Minetti has secured significant research funding for her current project through the University of Kassel's competitive "Pilot" program. Her previous research positions include fellowships at the German Historical Institute in Rome and participation in major collaborative projects such as "Henze Digital – Hans Werner Henze's Artistic Network" and the trinational project "Writing Music – Iconic, Performative, Operative and Material Aspects in Musical Notation(s)" funded by DFG, FWF, and SNF.

Dr. Minetti is actively involved in the "Henze Digital" project, which focuses on creating a digital edition of Hans Werner Henze's correspondence network. She has also participated in workshops and conferences related to musical notation, digital humanities approaches to music scholarship, and gender studies in music. Her work often bridges traditional musicological methods with digital humanities approaches, reflecting contemporary trends in the field.