Stefania Tallini is an Italian jazz pianist, composer and arranger born on August 18, 1966, in Catanzaro, Calabria. She earned a classical piano diploma from the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome in 1990, then returned to formal study a decade later for a diploma in Jazz Arrangement and Composition for Big Band from the Conservatorio Licinio Refice in Frosinone (2001). In between and after, she took specialization courses at Siena Jazz with pianists Enrico Rava, Stefano Battaglia and Bruno Tommaso, and master classes with Enrico Pieranunzi, Franco D'Andrea and Marc Johnson, all per her own official biography.

Her leader discography, documented on Discogs under a single unambiguous artist identity (artist 2196858, 22 release credits from 1990 to 2023, plus one 2026 duo album not yet indexed there), runs from the trio albums Étoile (2002, YVP Music) and New Life (2003, YVP Music) through the quintet date Dreams (2005, Alfa Music) to the quartet session Maresìa (2007, Alfa Music, with clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi, bassist Gianluca Renzi and drummer Nicola Angelucci). She then moved into a run of duo and co-led projects: Pasodoble (2008, with Mirabassi, built around photographs by Barbara Sbrocca), the solo-piano record The Illusionist (2010, Alfa Music), Viceversa (2013, with Brazilian guitarist-vocalist Guinga and clarinetist Corrado Giuffredi), Intimidade (2017, a duo album with Guinga devoted to his own songbook), Piano 4Hands (2019, a twin-piano project co-led with fellow Italian pianist-composer Cettina Donato), the trio album Uneven (2020, with bassist Matteo Bortone and American drummer Gregory Hutchinson) and E Se Domani (2023, a duo with flugelhorn player Franco Piana, recorded live at Rome's Casa del Jazz). Counting her own site's tally of 12 records as a leader, her most recent release is Con Fuoco (TRP Music, released April 24, 2026), a duo album with Sicilian vocalist Daniela Spalletta that sets jazz, improvisation and classical reinterpretations of Bach, Vivaldi and Villa-Lobos alongside original material, led by the single "Alfonsina y el Mar." Con Fuoco is confirmed through multiple independent Italian press sources rather than a Discogs credit under Tallini's own artist entry; see stefania-tallini_notes.md for the sourcing detail, including the correction of an earlier, unrelated build's mistaken attribution of this same album to a different act.

Beyond her own leader catalog, Discogs documents a parallel career as a composer whose tunes have been recorded by other major Italian and American jazz musicians: Enrico Pieranunzi's trio recorded her composition on Vol. 6 - Multiple Choice (2000) and on Canto Nascosto (2000, the track "Per Due"), and the trio of Pieranunzi, bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron recorded her tune "When All Was Chet" on Ballads (2006). Her composition "Deseo" was recorded twice independently, by classical guitarist Arturo Tallini on Zorongo - Omaggio a García Lorca (2001, a Federico García Lorca tribute co-billed to vocalist Ada Montellanico, on which Stefania Tallini herself does not perform) and again by vocalist Diana Torto with pianist John Taylor and bassist Anders Jormin on Triangoli (2009). She is also credited as pianist and composer on singer Marilena Paradisi's Come Dirti (2012) and as pianist, on-record composer and arranger of one track on the Dino & Franco Piana Ensemble's Reflections (2021), alongside trombonist Dino Piana. Her composition "Minor Tango" was recorded by the BargaJazz Orchestra, directed by Bruno Tommaso, on the compilation Sound & Score (2005, Philology), connecting back to her 2001 win at the orchestra's own Barga international competition for jazz-orchestra arranging and composition. Note: Arturo Tallini, the classical guitarist who leads the Zorongo album, is a separate Discogs identity from Stefania Tallini (she contributes only a single composing credit to that release) and should not be conflated with her; a second Discogs credit search result, a 1990 track by the German synth-pop/EBM act Pankow, was checked and excluded entirely as an unrelated namesake with no stylistic or circumstantial connection to the jazz pianist (see stefania-tallini_notes.md).

As a competitor, Tallini won the LagoMaggioreJazz solo-piano competition (1999) and the Viva il Jazz competition in Milan (2000), won the Barga international competition for jazz-orchestra arranging and composition (2001), placed second (runner-up) in the Emerging category of the Trofeo Italiano del Jazz "Django d'Or" (2004), and won the Best Creativity prize at the La Stele d'Argento international film-music award (2005). She has taught jazz piano at the conservatories of Pesaro and Benevento and currently teaches at the Conservatorio di Latina.

Tallini's own language blends jazz, classical and Brazilian music; the Discogs style tags attached to her albums track that range directly, from the cool, lyrical trio and quartet writing of her 2000s leader dates (Étoile, Maresìa) to the explicit Bach/Vivaldi/Villa-Lobos classical reinterpretations of Con Fuoco (2026) and the Latin-jazz/bossa nova vocabulary of her two Guinga collaborations, Viceversa (2013) and Intimidade (2017), devoted to the Brazilian composer's songbook. The Illusionist (2010), tagged Jazz and Classical with a Free Improvisation style credit on Discogs, sits at the solo-piano end of that same crossover identity. Her composing side runs in parallel to her performing career: tunes of hers have been recorded by other leaders' trios (Pieranunzi, Torto/Taylor/Jormin) independently of her own discography, a sign of standing within the Italian and European jazz-composition scene beyond her own records.