Ivan Fedele (Lecce 1953) is considered among the most important contemporary composers.
His catalogue consists of about 200 titles and includes compositions with and without electronics, for chamber and symphonic music (very important the Syntax and Lexikon cycles), for musical theater (Antigone from Sophocles, Thanathoséros from T. Tasso and Words and Music by S. Beckett), for the radio (Pentalogon, Barbara mitica and Orfeo al cinema Orfeo on texts by G. Corti) as well as for the silent cinema (La chute de la maison Usher by J. Epstein) and, finally, a recent video-opera, Galileo’s journey.
His music has been conducted, among others, by Pierre Boulez, Christoph Eschenbach, Myung-whun Chung, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Antonio Pappano, Riccardo Chailly, Esa-Pekka Salonen and performed by the most accredited orchestras and ensembles such as BBC London, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and S. Francisco Symphony Orchestra, SWR of Stuttgart, National de France, National de Lyon, Warsaw Symphony Orchestra, OSN of RAI, Symphony Orchestra of S. Cecilia, SWR Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble InterContemporain, London Sinfonietta etc.
Ivan Fedele’s idea of music can be summed up in the expression “sculpting the sound”, a programmatic intention that is realized through a conception and evolution of the musical material and its forms through a figural grammar (especially from the early period up to the beginning of the new millennium) and, subsequently, according to a generative grammar for which it is the sound itself that “tells” its story.
At the basis of his compositional thought we find the perceptive aspect of the work and all the strategies that give shape to the imagination are modulated to it.
The figures of P. Boulez and L. Berio were decisive for the maturation of the composer, as well as the meeting with F. Donatoni in the 80s.
I. Fedele has been professor at the CNR of Strasbourg (1996-2008), at the National Academy of S. Cecilia (2007-2023) and artistic director of the Music Sector of the Venice Biennale (2012-2020).
Among the various awards attributed to him, we recall the honor of “Chevalier de l’ Ordre des Lettres et des Arts” by the French Minister of Culture (2000), the lifetime achievement award “A. Honneger” (2016) and the honor of “Chevalier de l’ Ordre du Mérite Culturel” (2021) by Prince Albert II of Monaco.
