Vittorio

Vittorio Montalti (Rome, 1984) obtained his Composition Master degree with Alessandro Solbiati at the Conservatory G. Verdi in Milan and in Piano under the guidance of Aldo Tramma at the Conservatory S. Cecilia in Rome. Then he studied composition with Ivan Fedele at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and electronic music at the IRCAM-Centre Pompidou in Paris.

In 2010 during the Venice Biennale – 54th International Festival of Contemporary Music he was awarded the “Silver Lion”.

In 2016 he was awarded the “Una Vita nella Musica” prize by Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

His works have been performed at various festivals such as New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, Gran Teatro La Fenice, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, La Biennale di Venezia, GRAME – Biennale de Lyon, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Roma Europa Festival, I Teatri di Reggio Emilia/Festival Aperto, Teatro Regio di Parma/Festival Verdi, Teatro Lirico Sperimentale di Spoleto, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Orchestra Regionale della Toscana, Milano Musica, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Ex Novo Musica, Bergamo Musica Festival, Divertimento Ensemble – Rondò, Festival Pontino, Festival Traiettorie, Sinfonieorchester Orchesterzentrum|NRW, Italian Cultural Institute of New Delhi, Sidney, Melbourne, London, Paris, Strasbourg and many others.

He has been composer in residence at Italian Cultural Institute in Paris (2013), at American Academy in Rome – Marcello Lotti Italian Fellowship (2014), Civitella Ranieri (2017), FortissimissimoFirenzeFestival – Amici della musica di Firenze (2017), Divertimento Ensemble (2018), La Società dei Concerti di Milano (2018-2019).

He is Advisor to the American Academy in Rome and he also works as a curator for the MA/IN Festival.

Particularly interested in music theater, he has written four operas on librettos by Giuliano Compagno that have been staged in different productions. He has worked with stage directors such as Francesco Saponaro, Alessio Pizzech, Claudia Sorace/Muta Imago and Giancarlo Cauteruccio.

In recent years Vittorio is also active as electronic music performer. In particular with two projects: The smell of blue electricity, a 50 minutes project for percussions and electronics that involve Blow Up Percussion and Tempo Reale, and The great void, a work written for Gloria Campaner and commissioned by MAO – Museo d’arte orientale di Torino.

In 2023 he has composed a song cycle commissioned by La Reggia di Venaria and inspired by Giuseppe Penone’s Il giardino delle sculture fluide. The piece has been performed by Marion Grange and Claudio Pasceri. 

He teaches composition at the Conservatory “Alfredo Casella” of L’Aquila.

The works written until 2017 are published by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni – SugarMusic S.p. A.
Since 2018 his music is published by Casa Ricordi – Universal Music Publishing.

Links

Casa Ricordi

Edizioni Suvini Zerboni

MA/IN Festival

Nuova Consonanza

Conservatorio de L’Aquila

photo © Luca Condorelli

https://www.instagram.com/vimontalti

https://www.instagram.com/vimontalti/

About him

« Vittorio Montalti is probably the most gifted Italian composer who has come into the forefront in recent years.»
Mario Messinis (2014)

« Built on a sequence of four high squeals of the cello, the piece borrows a certain head-on energy from rock music, with both players pushing to transcend the limitations of a rigidly repetitive structure. »
Corinna da Fonseca Wollheim – New York Times (2015)

« Silver Lion at Venice Biennale, Una vita nella musica prize of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Vittorio Montalti as other young collegues has looked into electronics at Ircam in Paris. But unlike many other composers he has dedicated a lot of his work to musical theatre. At only 33 years old, the right age for miracles, he is working on a new opera for Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.»
Francesco Antonioni – La Repubblica (2017)

« Vittorio Montalti, early 30s composer, free from any “academic rules” thanks to his thought and identity card, has firstly the credit to know how to face singing in its own home that is the opera’s “enchanted” palace without taking easy shortcuts. »
Guido Barbieri – La Repubblica (2016)

« I can only say that the tone of the music and the ensemble made of eight elements and three singers it seemed to me in its disintegration almost like a landslide, a flood of lapis lazuli, of splinters, of light fragments as in a dream. »
Franco Cordelli – Il Corriere della Sera (2016)

« After the 50/60s years old composers who have lived the lesson of the great protagonists of post-war forefront, the Italian scene seems to lack of young musicians able to rise internationally. The 30 years old Vittorio Montalti (who studied with Solbiati and Fedele) seems to have clear purpose and idea. »
Massimo Contiero – Il Mattino di Padova (2014)

« Montalti’s music revealed a dramaturgic physiognomy thanks to a great theatrical intuition that makes the prismatic and changeable story of the protagonist who thinks of himself and the agitated world around him. »
Francesco Saponaro – Amadeus (2016)

« Montalti escapes from the cages where singing often remains imprisoned in modern operas. The young composer is not less able in using instruments, that sometimes produce sounds mixed with the electronics and sometimes are used in a traditional way. The great mastery in using his tools, a strong sense of theater, the freshness of ideas are the ingredients of a great success. »
Mauro Mariani – Il Giornale della Musica (2013)