Simone Fontanelli
Since winning the prestigious 6th Salzburg International Mozart Composition Competition in 1995, Simone Fontanelli has been considered as one of the most authentic contemporary musical personalities. In 2000 he was appointed to the faculty of the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, where he teaches Contemporary Music Performance (Aufführungspraxis Neue Musik) and is the Director of the Institut für Neue Musik.
As both a composer and conductor, he has been invited to many international Festivals in Italy, Austria, Spain, the UK, Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Israel, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA and several other countries. He has always received the highest praise for his works: "I treasure his talent very highly…" (György Kurtág), “Fontanelli's music is poetically beautiful, touching” (Muzsika, Hungarian Music Magazine) and for his interpretations as a conductor: “It is rare that one's music is prepared with such sensitivity and insight, combined with such superb technical skill” (George Crumb). Fontanelli has received commissions from several international institutions, festivals and artists and his compositions are performed worldwide.
In 2011, his children’s opera Es war einmal ein Stück Holz (Once Upon a Time there was a Piece of Wood), based on Collodi’s Pinocchio and commissioned by the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, was met with great success, with all performances selling out. Since then, the opera has been staged several times in Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Austria, in the respective translations. A CD recording of the work was released in the UK in 2019.
From 2003 to 2009, Simone Fontanelli was the Director of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music (Brunswick, ME - USA) and a member of the distinguished faculty/artist roster at the prestigious Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, held in the same city.
He has given masterclasses and lectures in Contemporary Music Performance, Music Analysis and Composition at many leading universities in Europe, Asia and USA, including the Juilliard School in New York, the Lamont School in Denver, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Budapest Liszt Academy, the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and many others. Since 2023 he has been on the faculty of the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.
Simone Fontanelli was born in 1961 in Milan. He studied guitar with Notis Mavroudis and graduated in composition from the Conservatorio di Milano in 1989, where he was a student of Davide Anzaghi and Umberto Rotondi. He also studied philosophy at the University of Milan.