Musicology · Transcultural studies · Performance

Music, cultures,identity.

Explore my background
Presentation of musicological research at a conference
Leonardo Buffardi leafing through a book in front of a bookcase
Leonardo Buffardi playing drums at a concert

“Between thought and gesture, music becomes a meeting place for knowledge, bodies and cultures”.

Biography

Leonardo Buffardi, born in Naples in 1995, is an independent researcher and public communicator working in transcultural studies, aesthetics and performance. His research explores the cultural dynamics of the performing arts and the relationships between sound, identity and social forms, with a particular focus on Afro-diasporic cultures and popular music.

After earning a master’s degree with honours at the Conservatorio di Salerno, he is pursuing a master’s degree in Musica, Culture, Media e Performance at the Università degli Studi di Milano. He presents his research at national and international conferences.

Research and outreach

Investigate. Share.
Bring into dialogue.

Publications, conference contributions, masterclasses and events: an archive to explore and update over time.

Conferences and symposia

2027
2026 (7 presentations)
CONGRESS2026
EuroMAC 11 — European Music Analysis ConferenceBarcelona, Spain

Bossa No(vas) sin Samba: A Comparative Paradigm of Rhythmic Syntax and Harmonic Rhythm

This contribution compares samba and bossa nova through an analysis of accent patterns, interlocking, the relationship between voice and accompaniment, and harmonic rhythm. Bossa nova emerges as a branch of samba rather than a form of “Latin jazz”: the smaller ensemble redistributes rhythmic functions without erasing its Afro-Brazilian foundations. The study critiques the standardisation of lead sheets, which prioritises chords and turns a complex idiom into a generic pattern.

Organised by: ESMUC

Role: Speaker

Official programme or webpage

Date: 07/09/2026

CONGRESS2026
VII Congresso ARLAC/IMS — Sociedade Internacional de MusicologiaRio de Janeiro, Brazil

Epistemic Resonance between Pucundria and Saudade: Pino Daniele and Marisa Monte, Transatlantic Rewriting as Cultural Me

Organised by: Prof. Maria Alice Volpe

Role: Presenter · Speaker

Official programme or webpage

Date: 12/08/2026

CONFERENCE2026
Creativity, Resistance and Social Change — LCIRAccra, Ghana

Ritual Temporality and Collective Agency: Afro-Brazilian Sound Practices as Social Change

Across history and cultures, creativity has played a central role in resisting injustice, challenging dominant narratives and imagining alternative social futures. From storytelling, music and visual art to literature, performance, digital media and everyday creative practices, acts of creation often emerge in response to exclusion, oppression or crisis. Creativity can unite communities, give voice to marginalised experiences and sustain collective struggles for dignity, justice and transformation.

Organised by: Dr Olena Lytovka

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 13/06/2026

CONGRESS2026
Società di Studi Geografici — Convegno sulle migrazioniNaples, Italy

La corneta china: zone di contatto organologico tra reti imperiali e carnevale santiaguero

The presentation proposed a “geo-philological” reading of the corneta china as a device for shaping urban and diasporic space, highlighting the circular trajectories of sound linking Africa, Asia and the Western Hemisphere. It traced the organological continuum connecting the double-reed aerophones of the zurna–surnay–shahnai–suonà family through to the Afro-Cuban reinscription of the corneta china in the congas of Santiago de Cuba.

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 11/06/2026

CONGRESS2026
Dare senso allo slop — Università degli Studi di MilanoMilan, Italy

Dare senso allo slop: l’intelligenza artificiale tra sperimentazione artistica e riflessione filosofica

The event focused on the relationship between artificial intelligence and creativity, drawing on experiments by students on the “Estetica dei nuovi media” course, including a video inspired by Rabelais’s Gargantua et Pantagruel.

Organised by: Prof. Alice Barale

Role: Project Manager · Speaker

Official programme or webpage

Date: 12/05/2026

CONGRESS2026
IV Convegno Annuale AlumniLevi · Popolare di suoniVenice, Italy

Classificare il popolare: Il Danzón cubano come spazio di negoziazione tra canone, cultura e potere

This presentation addressed the ambiguity of the pop–popular–popolare–folklore paradigm, understood not as stable or consensual categories, but as sets of historical, linguistic and sociocultural processes involved in the classification, circulation and legitimisation of musical practices.

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 20/03/2026

CONGRESS2026
Convegno «Voci ritrovate» — Conservatorio G. MartucciSalerno, Italy

Voci ritrovate e autorialità eclissata: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel e Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini tra canone, oblio e riattivazione culturale

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 13/03/2026

2025 (2 presentations)
CONGRESS2025
MoMI Annual Meeting — Università di Napoli L’OrientaleNaples, Italy

Mobilità culturale e resistenza epistemica: Capoeira e Candomblé come pratiche afrobrasiliane di riappropriazione del Sud globale

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 19/12/2025

CONFERENCE2025
Graduate Conference «(Fr)attualità» — Università di Napoli L’OrientaleNaples, Italy

Heitor Villa-Lobos e Catullo da Paixão Cearense: dal frammento poetico alla sintesi compositiva in Chôros n. 10

The intersection of words and music is central to the construction of national cultural identity in modernity. Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Chôros n. 10 offers a paradigmatic case of poetic and musical resemanticisation, in which a text by Catullo da Paixão Cearense (“Rasga o Coração”) — set to Anacleto de Medeiros’s 1895 instrumental schottisch “Yara” — is recontextualised within a symphonic-choral composition.

Role: Presenter

Official programme or webpage

Date: 02/12/2025

Scholarly publications

2027
2026 (1 publication)
Official cover of Programa e Livro de Resumos, VII Congresso ARLAC/IMS 2026
Contribution to the conference abstracts · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ressonância epistêmica entre pucundria e saudade: Pino Daniele e Marisa Monte na reescrita transatlântica como mediação cultural

In VII Congresso ARLAC/IMS 2026: Programa e Livro de Resumos, edited by Juan Pablo González, Maria Alice Volpe and Diósnio Machado Neto. Rio de Janeiro: Editora da Escola de Música da UFRJ, 2026, pp. 78–79.

ISBN 978-65-88700-40-2

Direct download (PDF)View on Academia.edu

The PDF contains the complete volume; Leonardo Buffardi’s contribution appears on pages 78–79.

Artistic activity

From thought
to performance.

Concert at Teatro Sociale di Como with choir and musicians on stage
Teatro Sociale di Como · “Intrecci di Popoli”, 11 April 2026.
Concerts · Projects · Collaborations

Music as a living practice.

Concert with the Milano Türk Müzik Korosu (Milan Turkish Music Choir) at the Teatro Sociale di Como on 11 April 2026, as part of the “Intrecci di Popoli” event.

Journeys and communities

Brazilian music, beyond its borders.

Leonardo Buffardi with drummer Isac Jamba during a masterclass
Masterclass with drummer Isac Jamba.
Leonardo Buffardi playing pandeiro in a capoeira setting in Pelourinho, Salvador da Bahia
Pandeiro and capoeira in Pelourinho, Salvador da Bahia.
Leonardo Buffardi taking part in a roda de samba in Pelourinho, Salvador da Bahia
Roda de samba in Pelourinho, Salvador da Bahia.

For around fifteen years, my performance work has been intertwined with that of Brazilian communities in Italy, through concerts, venues and initiatives that bring culturally significant occasions such as São João, Carnival and micareta to life far from Brazil. In these settings, music is more than entertainment: it connects rhythm, dance, memory and belonging.

My aim is to help share these experiences beyond the circles in which they usually circulate, without reducing them to a folkloric image, but seeking to convey their complexity and authenticity through musical practice, listening and encounter.

Collaborations and production

Artistic collaborations, from stage to studio.

Collage of four Livio Cori album covers
Recording projects and collaborations

Since 2020, my collaboration with Livio Cori has been an important part of my artistic journey, spanning live concerts and studio work, from recording to involvement in the creation of several recording projects. This experience has also led to collaborations with other Italian artists, both on shared projects and independently, some of whom also appear in Livio’s work.

These experiences allow me to move between a direct relationship with the audience and the collective shaping of sound, across a variety of musical languages and practices.

Read the article about the sold-out concert at Teatro Bolivar
Books

Writing and publishing
journeys.

Literary works
Music education books
Music nonfiction · Musicology

Music publications

Coming Soon
Contact

Let’s talk!

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