Professor Vivienne Suvini-Hand. 

Author, Academic and Music Pedagogue.   

​

Musical Education

​

Vivienne is a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin where she studied singing, violin,  and composition.  She was a pupil of the distinguished Polish bass-baritone, Professor Maciej Smolenski. She also studied with the operatic tenor, Nicholas Buxton of the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Welsh National Opera. 

Vivienne has repeatedly won awards for music and acting from an early age. As an opera singer, she has performed many leading roles with operatic companies in the UK, including Lucy Lockit in Benjamin Britten's The Beggar's Opera (original, John Gay), Giannetta in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Carmen in Bizet's Carmen and Liu in Puccini's Turandot. She has delivered concert performances of, and concert talks about, operatic repertoire by Mozart, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Offenbach, Delibes, Bizet, Massenet, and Puccini. Vivienne also has a Diploma with Distinction in Voice and Vocal Science.    

​

Academic History.

​

Vivienne is a Professor Emerita of Italian Music and Literature at Royal Holloway, the University of London where she worked for 25 years.  Whilst studying at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, she simultaneously pursued an undergraduate degree at Trinity College, Dublin where she gained a First Class Honours Degree in Joint Italian and French in 1983, also winning the prestigious French Government Medal Award for that year. She went on to study at New College, Oxford University, transferring to Linacre College on the award of a Scholarship, and gaining a Doctorate at Oxford in 1989. She taught for a number of Oxford Colleges including St Hugh's, St Anne's, St Hilda's, Jesus College and Lady Margaret Hall before becoming a Lecturer in Italian and Admissions Tutor at Royal Holloway, The University of London in 1988. She was made a Senior Lecturer in 1999, a Reader in 2003, and a Professor of Music and Literature in 2005. At Royal Holloway she co-directed the Franco-Italian Concert Series under the auspices of the Head of Music, Professor Dorothy Wedderburn. 

 

Research

​

Professor Suvini-Hand pursues research on modern and contemporary Italian poetry, eighteenth to twentieth-century opera, Italian instrumental music, and the relationship between words and music in the work of avant-garde composers. Some of her book publications to date include: Andrea Zanzotto (Edinburgh, 1994), Mirage and Camouflage: Hiding behind Hermeticism in Ungaretti's L'Allegria (Leicester, 2000), Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy (Oxford, 2006), Paganini, "Little Pagan". The Life of Paganini in Verse with scholarly introduction and notes, and Paganini: a Re-evaluation of his Legend (Munich, 2017). She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals on Italian opera, film,  modern poetry and on the representations of Niccolo' Paganini in literature and the visual arts. She frequently reviews classical concerts for newspapers and music magazines, some of which are linked here on the menu's Musicografo page. 

Her research profile can be viewed here:

http://tinyurl.com/ogs6b6y

​

The writing of Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy and its related activities such as conferences and concert performances, were supported by three grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Board  the British Academy  and the European Music Society.

​

Book review comments include:

​

On Andrea Zanzotto:

 

' A landmark in Zanzotto criticism' (THES)

 

'This excellent volume is an indispensable tool for scholars and students. An admirable and exceedingly valuable piece of scholarship' (Italian Studies)

 

'Hand's compelling study should be read by all who are curious of the fate of poetry in the modern world' (MLR)

 

'Impressively thorough' (TLS)

 

'This book, for its sharp critical acumen and clarity of exposition, places itself among the most valid contributions to the interpretation of the work of a great poet' (Poetiche).

 

On Mirage and Camouflage:

​

'Hand's book is the first in a new possible phase of criticism on Ungaretti, showing how it is possible to absorb the historical implications of the ideological ambiguity of the poet into a critical analysis of his actual poetry'.

 

'She creates a detailed, careful and fascinating fresco' (Annali d'Italianistica).

 

On Sweet Thunder:

 

'Sweet Thunder is a welcome addition to the literature on recent opera, valuable to both the musicologist and the literary scholar'.

 

'The literary readings are so detailed and sophisticated that it is impossible to do justice to them here'.

 

'Suvini-Hand's is moreover the first scholarly analysis of the text of Maderna's Ausstrahlung, and its attention to this fascinating work alone would make the book worth reading '.

 

'It is definitely recommended reading for those with an interest in post-war Italian culture' (Cambridge Opera Journal).

 

'This distinctive tone makes these compositions uniquely commendable for further investigations into their influence on Italy's artistic canon' (Forum for Modern Language Studies).

 

 

Vocal and Violin Pedagogy.

 

Vivienne hugely enjoys teaching classical violin, singing, piano and music theory to young people and has entered students for musical festivals and ABRSM examinations with great success, the vast majority of students achieving distinctions in the four disciplines taught.  She also prepares students for competitions and music scholarships to public schools. Admission to Vivienne's private classes is by audition. As well as conducting private lessons (live or by zoom in her music studio) Vivienne runs a special programme called 'On Stage at Home' which can be used as a supplement or alternative to standard lessons. She also holds two violin group lessons on Saturdays with her husband, the violinist and conductor, Luigi Suvini, where she acts as violin assistant and piano accompanist.  The group lessons  include theory sessions, aurals, on-stage solo performances with feedback, and choir practice, directed by Vivienne.  

​

Vivienne has coached and played as a violinist with local chamber ensembles, including the St Cecilia String Ensemble and the West Hampstead Symphony Orchestra. 

​

Professor Suvini-Hand combines her academic knowledge of music and her great passion for the musical education of young people in her writing of children's literature on cultural and educational topics. She has written children's poetry designed to accompany the teaching of the violin Suzuki repertoire, and a book designed for adults and children with a scholarly introduction, notes and coloured illustrations entitled Paganini, "Little Pagan". The Life of Paganini in Verse (2017, 157pp). All the proceeds of Paganini, "Little Pagan" as well as Vivienne's  'Open Access' publications go to animal charities (see page entitled 'The Tango Connection').

​

Professor Suvini-Hand is also a translator and Italian Diction Consultant for professional and amateur singers of Italian Opera.