Welcome. This is my professional, artistic, and academic profile, as well as my foundational education. For a more detailed chronological overview of all my most significant activities since 1992, I recommend consulting my full biography file available to download or even better my full CV file available on request.

I’ve also decided to include a brief, more informal piece titled “Piccoli, grandi passi,” (small great steps), where I attempt to portray, so to speak, a part of my childhood and adolescence tied to the world of music and technology.
Happy reading!

I was born in Buenos Aires (Argentina). I have lived in Italy for a long time.  I currently reside in Bolzano where I work at the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory of Music (national higher education institution). I am a composer and an academic professor focused on electroacoustic music composition, both with and without instruments (mixed music). My artistic-compositional research is deeply rooted in an endless reflection on how to compose, communicate, and express emotions through electroacoustic music, inspiring feelings and emotional questions and answers through sound.

My compositional style is characterized by the presence of sound gestures shaped by highly intricate materials that interlock like a puzzle. I greatly enjoy crafting micro-sound forms under a microscope-like approach using a DAW. I am naturally inclined to build sound microstructures with a defined character and an abundance of energy, though not exclusively. Creating an “electronic sound” is not, in itself, a particularly challenging task. The real challenge, from my perspective, lies in establishing a coherent causal dialogue in multiple temporal, spatial and spectral polyphonies.

My listening process focuses primarily on the frequency components of microformal structures: their textures, and their transient evolutions and permanence. This focus inspired the title of my composition “Permanente e Transitorio” (Permanent and Transient). I love to manipulate the internal components of individual sound elements and create consequential relationships with other sonic subjects across different levels of correspondence and layering, paying meticulous attention to dynamic transformations. That is perceptual keys that establish my interplay on various levels of spectral fusion and fission (J. Chowning, 1990). Something emerges, something hides.

I have been primarily qualified in both Argentina and Italy by astonishing composers, researchers and programmers from diverse countries, well known in the electroacoustic music scene.  During my early training I have also studied orchestration, harmony, counterpoint, composition for instruments. During my career, I have further developed skills in experimental audiovisual composition, sound programming, creative sonic exploration, noise restoration, mixing, live electronics, technical recording (for operas, orchestras, ensembles, and solo instruments), music engraving, graphical scores, live electronic performance, intermedial concert organization, jazz piano, and composition for theater and documentaries.

Since the 1990s, I have always been deeply drawn to the mixing and sound design of “cinematic” quality. For me, it represented a characteristic that I could not find in the electroacoustic music of that time, nor, by its nature, in earlier repertoires. I wanted to integrate these characteristics into my compositions.
Over time, I refined various techniques to get closer to this ideal, studying different methods of editing and mixing, as well as the artistic use of 3D sound spatialization, sound synthesis and resynthesis, and the management of these elements from the perspective of electroacoustic orchestration (a conceptual and operational approach to organizing material in an orchestral manner). Once I achieved a certain level proficiency, however, I realized it was time to take a step back from an almost inevitable standardization. I placed different aspects of this practice into separate “stanze” (room),” keepin free space for the development of a personal style. This process gave birth to my composition Di_stanze (2009).

I am predominantly fascinated by contradictions, contrasts, opposing forces, and spectromorphological ambiguities: “It sounds as if it’s behaving like falling stones” (Smalley, 1997). My compositions often explore questions of the unexpected, surprise, and illusion. My style have been influenced by the admiration for composers such as James Dashow, Claude Debussy, Francis Dhomont, Mario Mary, João Pedro Oliveira, Maurice Ravel, Jean-Claude Risset, Curtis Roads, Jorge Sad, Horacio Vaggione, Igor’ Stravinskij, and, of course, Astor Piazzolla.

PROFESSOR

I greatly enjoy teaching and interacting with my students because everyone represents a set of new encompassing challenges for me. The rewards almost never come immediately, but the results of efforts and passion for academic work emerge over time, varying in proportion depending on each student’s personality and individual hard work.

Many of my students have stood out as finalists or winners in prestigious electronic music composition competitions and have been featured in internationally renowned festivals. After graduation, some have pursued doctoral studies (PhD) in the United States or even with me in Bolzano’s Conservatory of Music, while others have become freelance professionals in fields such as film music composition (USA), sound design for film and video games (Germany and England), Tonmeister at the University of Graz, or audio technology bloggers (Italy).

CURRENT ACADEMIC POSITIONS HOCHSCHULE FÜR MUSIK “CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI

I held the following positions at the Hochschule für Musik “Claudio Monteverdi”

• 2024-> Coordinator and Supervisor for PhD students in the “Creative Sound Arts” (CSA) curriculum which is part of the National Interest Doctorate in Artistic Research on Musical Heritage, XL Cycle (2024/2025–2026/2027), funded by the Ministry of University and Research and the European Union through the Next Generation EU project. The program emphasizes multidisciplinary and innovative approaches to higher education in arts and music and is led by the Castelfranco Veneto Music Conservatory.
• 2023-> Member of Management Board (BOD).
• 2016->
  • Full-time Head Professor of Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia Composition with a permanent employment contract.
  • Thesis Supervisor for Bachelor, Master programs.
  • Head Director of the Music Technology Department.
  • Coordinator of the MediaStaff team, supervising multimedia content creation for the Hochschule, including concert recordings, streaming, and video/audio post-production.

CURRENT COURSES

I held the following courses:

• Electroacoustic music and multimedia composition
• Audiovisual composition
• Sampling, synthesis, and digital sound processing
• Systems and programming languages for audio and musical applications
• Performance and control environments for live electronics
• Electroacoustic
• Acoustic and psychoacoustics

© Gustavo Delgado. All rights reserved.