Italian choral director, composer and ethnomusicologist Gian Paolo Mele was born in Nuoro on 10 June 1944. He studied engineering, but from his early youth devoted his time to popular music.
He joined the Coro di Nuoro and proposed that they sing his first composition, Adios, Nugoro amada. Later he took over the direction of the Coro Universitario di Parma, and then of the Coro di Nuoro.
He was also a scholar of Sardinian music and popular traditions.
Gian Paolo Mele died in Nuoro on 15 February 2018, aged seventy-three.