An Italian composer born April 9, 1948 in Venice.
Claudio Ambrosini studied music history and early instruments at Venice University and trained in electronic music at the Venice Conservatory. Also in possession of a master’s degree in literature and foreign languages, he is passionately interested in the Venetian dialect, and for Venetian culture as a whole.
Influenced by the personalities of Bruno Maderna and Luigi Nono, he directed his research towards the future, without nostalgia yet with full consciousness of the past. He is thus also interested in the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in Venetian composers such as Claudio Monteverdi, Giovanni Gabrieli, and he enjoys composing for early instruments (Susanna, oratorio for soloists, small chorus and ensemble of early instruments, State commission, 1995) or early dances (Ballo Contadino for violin, 1981; La Ciaccona for piano, 1998…).
A collector of orchestral instruments, he tests his own works before entrusting them to performers. With the ensemble Ex Novo then with the CRIS (Centro Internazionale per la Ricerca Strumentale), that he founded in respectively 1976 and 1983 in Venice, he explores new instrumental techniques.
Ambrosini’s works are many, multiform and often begin with a mass of energy that ruptures silence. He composes operas, oratorios, passions, ballets, radiophonic works, instrumental and vocal pieces, sound installations, and regularly includes a piano and multiple percussion instruments. Among his works are: Aula 104 for crumhorns, tape and electronics (1976); Hic sunt leones for piano and instrumental ensemble (1984); Il segreto for soprano and instrumental ensemble (1988); Miti, guerrieri, amorosi, radio-drama (1993); Pandora librante, lyrical and symphonic ballet in two acts (1997); Il canto della pelle (SEX Unlimited), opera, State commission (2005); Tocar, concerto for piano and orchestra, commissioned by the National Orchestra of the RAI (2006); Il killer di parole, ludodrama in two acts, commissioned by La Fenice (2010); Morte di Caravaggio for bassoon and orchestra (2015); Phonurgia for orchestra, commissioned by the Kunstuniversität Graz (2015).
