Born in Rome, Marco Pesci studied the guitar under Sergio Notaro and Linda Calsolaro and earned his degree at the Niccolò Piccinni Conservatory in Bari. Afterwards he dedicated himself to the renaissance lute and the lute family of instruments, studying under Federico Marincola and Jacob Lindberg, with whose guidance he graduated with distinction at the Royal College of Music in London. He completed his studies with Anthony Bailes, Paul O'Dette, Hopkinson Smith and Pat O'Brien.
Marco Pesci has collaborated with artists of international renown such as Salvatore Accardo, Gloria Banditelli, Alan Curtis, Gabriele Ferro, Cecilia Gasdia, Simone Kermes, Nigel Rogers, and Giorgio Surian, and with ensembles specialising in Renaissance and Baroque music played on original instruments, including I Delfici, Affetti Amorosi, Il Complesso Barocco, La Cappella della Pietà dei Turchini, and Fête Rustique. He has also worked as the continuo player in Rome's Opera House, at the Teatro San Carlo of Naples, and the EAOSS of Palermo. Since 1998 he has frequently accompanied the mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli both as a soloist and with the ensemble Le Musiche Nove directed by Claudio Osele. He has played all over Europe and North America, performing in the principal concert halls, including the Internationale Musikfestwochen in Lucerne, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Symphony Hall in Boston, and has made radio recordings for several European channels. He has also accompanied Cecilia Bartoli in live television transmission broadcasts from Holland, France and Italy.
As a researcher of lutenist sources he discovered an unpublished treatise on the basso continuo for the archlute, from which an unpublished tuning has been deduced, and he has found new sources which have contributed towards discovering the real identity of the Renaissance lutenists known as Laurencinus Romanus and The Knight of the Lute. The results of his studies have been published in the journal Recercare; Nuove proposte di prassi esecutiva fondate su un inedito trattato di basso continuo per arciliuto, Vol. VIII 1996, 5-57; Lorenzo Tracetti, alias Lorenzino, suonatore di liuto, Vol. IX 1997, 233-242 and Il Cavaliere disvelato: Vincenzo Pinti, "nella corte di Roma detto il cavaliere del liuto", Vol. XV 2003, 119-147, and Lorenzini tra Parma e Roma: nuova luce su Lorenzino bolognese, Lorenzino fiammingo, Lorenzino Tracetti e il Cavaliere del liuto, Vol. XVII 2005. He has also collaborated with Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and the Italian Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Marco Pesci is the holder of the Lute Chair at Parma.
