Federico Gardella was born in Milan in 1979.
His music has featured in many important festivals and concert seasons in Tokyo (Tokyo Opera City), Milan (Festival Milano Musica), Royaumont (Voix Nouvelles), New York (Columbia University), Florence (Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), Riga (Festival Arena/Great Guild Concert Hall), Erl (Tiroler Festspiele/Festspielhaus), Turin (Rai NuovaMusica), Lodz (Lodz Philharmonic Hall), Bologna (Festival Bologna Modern/Teatro Manzoni), Guanajuato (Festival Internacional Cervantino), Boston (Harvard University), Parma (Festival Traiettorie), Takefu (Takefu International Music Festival), Venice (La Biennale di Venezia), Lausanne (Société de Musique Contemporaine), Siena (Accademia Musicale Chigiana), Bruxelles (Flagey), Rome (Auditorium Parco della Musica), Ljubljana (Slovenian Philharmonic) and Madrid (Auditorio Nacional de Música).
In the upcoming season he will be composer in residence at the Festival Neue Musik in Rockenhausen and will debut with the Orchestra del Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, the Remix Ensemble Casa da Música in Porto and the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz.
He has received commissions from numerous institutions including the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Takefu International Music Festival, the Fondazione Spinola Banna per l’Arte, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto (the with support of SIAE – Classici di Oggi) and the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia. He has been composer in residence at the Divertimento Ensemble and the Fondation Royaumont and Marcello Lotti Italian Fellow in Music at the American Academy in Rome.
He has won prizes in various international composition competitions including the Tansman International Competition of Musical Personalities in Lodz and in 2009 he was assigned the Takefu International Composition Award.
In 2012 he was awarded the First Prize of the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award in Tokyo and in 2014 he was assigned the Special Prize “Una Vita nella Musica – Giovani” at the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia.
His compositions, conducted among others by Marco Angius, Zsolt Nagy, Tito Ceccherini, Wolfram Christ, Carlo Boccadoro, Etienne Siebens, Naohiro Totsuka, Sandro Gorli and Jonathan Webb, have been performed by orchestras such as the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra della Toscana, the Lodz Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Another important aspect is his collaboration with chamber groups and ensembles specializing in the contemporary repertoire, such as the Trio di Parma, the Arditti Quartet, the Quatuor Diotima, Slowind, the Hilliard Ensemble, the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, the Israel Contemporary Players, the Divertimento Ensemble and the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
In 2013 the label Stradivarius produced, for the Times Future series, a monographic CD dedicated to his music.
In 2014 Mano d’erba (for orchestra) has been chosen as “recommended work” at the International Rostrum of Composers in Helsinki.
In 2021 his first opera, Else (based on Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler), was premiered at the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte of Montepulciano with the direction by Cecilia Ligorio, set and costumes design by Domenico Franchi.
In the same year it opened the Opera Season of the Fondazione I Teatri of Reggio Emilia (Festival Aperto/Teatro Ariosto).
His works have been broadcast on the radio in Italy (Radio Tre), Australia (ABC Radio), Sweden (Sveriges Radio), Netherlands (NPO), Hong Kong (RTHK), France (Radio France), Japan (NHK), Iceland (RÚV) and Austria (ORF).
Federico Gardella studied the piano with Piero Rattalino and Riccardo Risaliti at the Milan Conservatory where he graduated with distinction. He furthered his studies with Klaus Hellwig at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
He studied composition at the Milan Conservatory with Sonia Bo and then took advanced courses with Azio Corghi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. He furthered his studies with Alessandro Solbiati at the Corsi di Perfezionamento in Sermoneta and at the Milan Conservatory, where he graduated summa cum laude. Moreover, his acquaintance with Brian Ferneyhough and Toshio Hosokawa has been of significant importance to his artistic development.
He teaches composition at the Milan Conservatory and is Faculty Member at the Takefu International Composition Workshop in Japan.
Since 2016 he is one of the artistic advisors of the Fondazione Campus Internazionale di Musica of Latina.
His music is published by Sz Sugar – Sugarmusic S.p.A.
(September 2023)