Department of Music

Biography

Michele Zaccagnini studied clarinet at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, graduated cum laude with a bachelor in Economics at Universita’ La Sapienza in Rome. At Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts he graduated with a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory where he studied with Martin Boykan, Yu-Hui Chang and Eric Chasalow.

Michele’s main area of theoretical research focuses on Algorithmic Composition; he published a paper about Aldo Clementi compositional process in Perspectives of New Music, a description of one of his own compositional processes in The OM Composer’s Book n.3 (published by Ircam) and a paper about the Nonlinear Sequencer for the SEAMUS Conference in 2020 which is also available as a tool package in MaxMsp’s Package Manager. His research on  has been presented at University of Plymouth within the First International Workshop of Brain Computer Music Interface, at the Ircam Forum Conference in Sao Paulo, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Michigan Technological University within the 29th International Conference on Auditory Display.

Michele’s creative work consists of both music and audiovisuals implemented with idiosyncratic algorithmic techniques that are aimed at exploring static, non-narrative music. His music has been performed in the US, Italy and Germany by ensembles such as the Radnofski Saxophone Quartet, ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble), Dedalo Ensemble and L’Arsenale Ensemble. More recently his work exists mainly on YouTube where he regularly posts new audiovisual works and tutorials about audiovisual composition.