Nicola Campogrande, born in Turin, Italy, in 1969, is considered as one of the most important Italian composers today.
His music has been published exclusively by Breitkopf & Härtel since 2017.
After graduating from the conservatories of Milan and Paris, he began to develop an original personal style, combining past and present traditions in a fascinating new way. His scores have been performed by musicians such as Gauthier Capuçon, Riccardo Chailly, Lilya Zilberstein, Mario Brunello, Roberto Abbado, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestre National d’Île-de-France, the Lithuanian National Orchestra, the Fine Arts Quartet or the Quartetto del Teatro alla Scala, who have appreciated the freshness and vitality of his music and his ability to touch the hearts of the listeners.
A lover of musical theatre, he wrote the operas De bello gallico, #Folon, Opera italiana, La notte di San Nicola, I due usignoli, Macchinario, Lego, Alianti.
He also developed a rich orchestral and chamber music catalogue.
Among his most appreciated scores there are the Sinfonia n. 2 “Un mondo nuovo”, the Concerto for audience and orchestra, R (A portrait for piano and orchestra), Concerto allegro for guitar and orchestra, Nudo and Preludi da viaggio, for piano, Cinque modi per aprire un concerto, for orchestra, Urban gardens for piano and chamber orchestra, the Ink-jet preludes for guitar, Forme di felicità, for violin and piano, the Dances of Laughter and Forgetting for accordion and piano.
His music has been recorded on more than 35 cds (from DECCA to independent labels) and has been performed in the most important halls in many countries, such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, the Teatro alla Scala, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, the Werner Hall in Cincinnati, the Philharmonie in Paris, the Auditorium Santa Cecilia-Parco della Musica in Rome, the Rudolfinum in Prague.
Artistic director of the MITO SettembreMusica Festival from 2016 to 2023, Campogrande has also been a presenter on Italian RAI Radio3 since 1998.
He has produced the television programme “Contrappunti” on the Classica HD channel and currently writes for the cultural pages of the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
He is a member of the board of directors of the Fondazione Musica per Roma, which manages the Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Casa del Jazz. He was a member of the International Music Commission of the European Choral Association – Europa Cantat, where he’s now an advisor.
His book Occhio alle orecchie. Come ascoltare musica classica e vivere felici (2015) reached six editions and was then published in paperback. A third edition has already been published for 100 brani di musica classica da ascoltare una volta nella vita (2018). His last books are Storia della musica classica. Il racconto di un’avventura straordinaria, dal Medioevo a Spotify (2024), Viaggio al centro dell’orchestra. La vita segreta della musica classica tra direttori e solisti, prove e strumenti, disastri e colpi di genio (2023), Capire la musica classica ragionando da compositori (2020; then in paperback) and Le partiture sono ricette di cucina. Venti dischi che stanno riscrivendo la storia della musica (2020). In 2022 he published also the school book Prima la musica!.
Caricature by Clemens Falkenstein
