PODCAST: John Dante Prevedini leads a discussion about Classical Music and Visual Disability, including contributions from Charlotte Hardwick, Robert McCarney, Halida Dinova and Giuseppe Pennisi.
Italian composer and conductor Claudio Ambrosini was born in Venice on 9 April 1948. After studying foreign languages and literature in Milan, he studied electronic music with Alvise Vidolin at the Venice Conservatory (1972-5), then early instruments (1975-8) and also music history.
The Venice-based Ex Novo Ensemble was founded by Ambrosini in 1979, and is still the ensemble's conductor.
His compositional style is influenced by encounters with Bruno Maderna and Luigi Nono. He was the first composer from Italy to win the Prix de Rome, in 1985.
Since 1976 he has worked on computer music at the Centro per la Sonologia Computazionale in Padova, where he is also a professor at the department of Information Engineering in Padova University. He has been director of the Centro Internazionale per la Ricerca Strumentale, which he founded in 1983.