Manuel Cini is a concert pianist and musicologist. He received his PhD from the University of Surrey in 2026, and his Master of Music with Distinction from the Royal College of Music, London, in 2021. In autumn 2026, he joins University College London (UCL) as a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe.

Cini’s research broadly concerns Holocaust music and its legacies, with areas of interest including archival studies, memory studies, performance studies, cultural heritage, interdisciplinarity, historiography, life writing, and the relationship between literature and music. His scholarship has been supported by the AHRC Techne Doctoral Training Partnership and a University of Surrey Faculty Studentship. His work is further complemented by his role as Deputy Director of the Institute of Austrian and German Music Research (IAGMR).

Cini’s first monograph, The Life and Work of Composer Leon Kaczmarek in the Dachau Concentration Camp: From Ashes to Eternity, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in the series The Holocaust and its Contexts. Combining historical, biographical, and musicological approaches, the book uncovers and examines previously unknown works by the Polish composer Leon Kaczmarek (1903–1978), written during his imprisonment in the Dachau Concentration Camp. He has also contributed a publication to World ORT’s Music and the Holocaust project and has given premieres of Kaczmarek’s works at the University of Southampton.

Cini frequently presents his research through papers, invited lectures, and recitals at international conferences and festivals, notably the Royal Musical Association Annual Conference, the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg, the Being Human Festival, the Sixth International Performance Studies Network Conference, and the Doctors in Performance Festival at the Royal Academy of Music. He has also presented to global industry leaders such as Live Nation Entertainment.

As a concert pianist, Cini began playing at age six. He earned his BMus degree with highest honors from the Conservatory of Pescara under Filomena Montopoli, later continuing his studies with Andrea Lucchesini at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, and with Dina Parakhina and Dinara Klinton at the Royal College of Music. He further attended masterclasses led by Michele Campanella, Boris Petrushansky, Fany Solter, Marcella Crudeli, Gintaras Januševičius, Andreas Frölich, Orazio Maione, and Eduardo Hubert. Cini has been awarded first prizes at several international competitions, including the Franz Liszt Center Piano Competition (2021) and the Premio Accademia Giovani (2015).

Active internationally as a solo and chamber musician, he has performed across Europe, the United States, and Asia, and has appeared as soloist with orchestras in piano concertos by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky. Cini has toured with the New York City–based Lincoln Center Stage, as a Resident Artist for the entertainment company RWS Global, and has also appeared as a Guest Entertainer for Viking Cruises, where he curated and presented themed mainstage destination performances. He also performs regularly alongside violinist Lili Saryrah as part of the Immortal Beloved Duo.

He released a recording of Franz Liszt’s 12 Études d’Exécution Transcendante S.139 on Odradek Records.