Born in 1947 in Palermo, Salvatore Sciarrino is primarily a self-taught composer. He was first attracted to the visual arts but started experimenting with music at the age of twelve and held his first public concert at fifteen. He had some lessons from Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore, then pursued classical studies and spent a few years at Palermo University.
The Italian composer considers all of his works anterior to 1966 to be part of an apprenticeship that led to the development of his personal style.
He moved to Rome in 1969 and attended Franco Evangelisti’s course in electronic music at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. With Stockhausen, Evangelisti is considered by Salvatore Sciarrino as a major influence, an artistic father-figure. In 1977 he moved to Milan, where he was a teacher at the conservatory, but he has lived in Città di Castello, in Umbria, since 1983 when his compositional career allowed him to withdraw from teaching. Salvatore Sciarrino did, however, keep on teaching occasionally in Rome, Perugia, Bologna, Florence and Città di Castello. Among his students were Francesco Filidei, David Monacchi, Maurizio Pisati and Lucia Ronchetti.
Salvatore Sciarrino has developed a new musical syntax composed of micro-variations of exact and fractional sounds and silences, painting a transparent universe in constant flux. His exploration of the “sound zero” is represented in Esplorazione del bianco (1986) or in Cantare con silenzio (1999). His work on uniting poetry and music is evoked on Cantiere del poema (2011), based on texts by Petrarch and Foscolo.
Moreover, in Senza sale d’aspetto (2011), the Sicilian composer uses station announcements to highlight everyday life’s poetry.
Combining richness of detail with extreme synthesis, his music leads to a different way of listening that resembles an awakening to the exterior reality as well as to one’s self. After over fourty years, Salvatore Sciarrino’s catalogue is still evolving. Despite his affiliation with avant-garde composers such as Stockhausen, Salvatore Sciarrino claims for his work a profound continuity with history. People have described the Sciarrino sound as intimate, focused and refined.
His works include a large body of chamber music: five piano sonatas, many pieces for wind instruments and several theatrical works or operas, such as Da gelo a gelo (2006), Infinito nero (1998), Lohengrin (1982), Luci mie traditrici (1998), Macbeth (2002), and Perseo ed Andromeda (1990).
Salvatore Sciarrino’s discography counts over 100 CDs which were often acclaimed and awarded. He has received many prizes such as the award of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1971 and 1974, the Dallapiccola Award in 1974, the Psacaropoulos and the Abbiati Awards in 1983, the Premio Italia in 1984, and more recently the Prince Pierre de Monaco and the Feltrinelli International Award in 2003, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Contemporary Music in 2011, and the Premio Una Vita per la Musica in 2014.
From 1978 to 1980 he was Artistic Director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Salvatore Sciarrino wrote most of his operas’ librettos, but also a great number of articles, texts and essays, some of which have been collected in Carte da suono. He also wrote an interdisciplinary book about musical form, called Le figure della musica, da Beethoven a oggi.
Salvatore Sciarrino was featured in many international festivals, such as Alborough Festival, Berliner Festspiele Musik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Holland Festival, Salzburg Festival, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Ultima in Oslo, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Wiener Festwochen and Wien Modern.
He has composed for the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Biennale di Venezia, Fondazione Arena di Verona, Frankfurt Opera Theatre, La Fenice di Venezia, La Monnaie, London Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Opera Theatre, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, and Tokyo Suntory Hall.
The Italian composer considers all of his works anterior to 1966 to be part of an apprenticeship that led to the development of his personal style.
He moved to Rome in 1969 and attended Franco Evangelisti’s course in electronic music at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. With Stockhausen, Evangelisti is considered by Salvatore Sciarrino as a major influence, an artistic father-figure. In 1977 he moved to Milan, where he was a teacher at the conservatory, but he has lived in Città di Castello, in Umbria, since 1983 when his compositional career allowed him to withdraw from teaching. Salvatore Sciarrino did, however, keep on teaching occasionally in Rome, Perugia, Bologna, Florence and Città di Castello. Among his students were Francesco Filidei, David Monacchi, Maurizio Pisati and Lucia Ronchetti.
Salvatore Sciarrino has developed a new musical syntax composed of micro-variations of exact and fractional sounds and silences, painting a transparent universe in constant flux. His exploration of the “sound zero” is represented in Esplorazione del bianco (1986) or in Cantare con silenzio (1999). His work on uniting poetry and music is evoked on Cantiere del poema (2011), based on texts by Petrarch and Foscolo.
Moreover, in Senza sale d’aspetto (2011), the Sicilian composer uses station announcements to highlight everyday life’s poetry.
Combining richness of detail with extreme synthesis, his music leads to a different way of listening that resembles an awakening to the exterior reality as well as to one’s self. After over fourty years, Salvatore Sciarrino’s catalogue is still evolving. Despite his affiliation with avant-garde composers such as Stockhausen, Salvatore Sciarrino claims for his work a profound continuity with history. People have described the Sciarrino sound as intimate, focused and refined.
His works include a large body of chamber music: five piano sonatas, many pieces for wind instruments and several theatrical works or operas, such as Da gelo a gelo (2006), Infinito nero (1998), Lohengrin (1982), Luci mie traditrici (1998), Macbeth (2002), and Perseo ed Andromeda (1990).
Salvatore Sciarrino’s discography counts over 100 CDs which were often acclaimed and awarded. He has received many prizes such as the award of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1971 and 1974, the Dallapiccola Award in 1974, the Psacaropoulos and the Abbiati Awards in 1983, the Premio Italia in 1984, and more recently the Prince Pierre de Monaco and the Feltrinelli International Award in 2003, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Contemporary Music in 2011, and the Premio Una Vita per la Musica in 2014.
From 1978 to 1980 he was Artistic Director of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
Salvatore Sciarrino wrote most of his operas’ librettos, but also a great number of articles, texts and essays, some of which have been collected in Carte da suono. He also wrote an interdisciplinary book about musical form, called Le figure della musica, da Beethoven a oggi.
Salvatore Sciarrino was featured in many international festivals, such as Alborough Festival, Berliner Festspiele Musik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Festival d’Automne in Paris, Holland Festival, Salzburg Festival, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Ultima in Oslo, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Wiener Festwochen and Wien Modern.
He has composed for the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Biennale di Venezia, Fondazione Arena di Verona, Frankfurt Opera Theatre, La Fenice di Venezia, La Monnaie, London Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Opera Theatre, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, and Tokyo Suntory Hall.