Luca Francesconi
Italian composer. He studied piano at the Milan Conservatory and composition under Azio Corghi, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio, while also spending time in Boston studying jazz. He was an assistant to Berio between 1981 – 1984. In 1900 he founded AGON acustica informatica musica, a centre for music research and production. He has written more than seventy works for a wide range of instrumental and other media and collaborates regularly with leading conductors, soloists and ensembles. Francesconi is also an active conductor and has taught masterclasses and at conservatories around the world for more than twenty-five years. Francesconi is Music Director of the Venice Biennale, Director of the Ultima Festival and Head of Composition at the Musikhögskolan, Malmö. His many prizes include the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis (1990), the Förderpreis der Ernst-von-Siemens-Musikstiftung (1994), the Prix Italia (1994) and the 2015 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Large-Scale Composition for Duende, The Dark Notes: violin concerto.