Federica Fontanesi was born in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where she studied music and received a Diploma in the Flute, at a very early age, from the “A. Peri” Music Institute in 1988. In that same year, she placed third in the International Stresa Competition for avant-garde musical instruments. She then went on to study at the French Institute in Florence with Maestro Marzio Conti. She participated in other specialisation seminars, including an international one held in Genova by Aurele Nicolet on the French Repertory.

Since 1989, she has been playing in the Corrado Abbati Operetta Company and touring with them to the best traditional theatres in Italy.

 She has performed as a soloist; as a chamber musician in duets with both the piano and the harp; and in quartets with strings. She often plays with various Italian chamber groups and orchestras.

 She is very involved in teaching at the CEPAM – Centro Permanente Attività Musicali (The Permanent Centre for Musical Activities) in Reggio Emilia, where she holds courses on Flute, Theory, and Solmization; and for which she published a manual on Music Reading in 1991. 

She had a degree in Political Science at the University of Bologna with points 100/110 disputing  her thesis: "The denationalization  of  the Italian Lirical Music Institutions: toward which kind of organization?".

 She has also been the personal assistant to Andrea Griminelli since 1997.