JOAN CERVERÓ

UNDERSTAND CONTEMPORARY MUSIC | SEASON V | #4

Professor Lamberto Coccioli (Geneva, Switzerland, 1963) is Head of Music Technology at Birmingham Conservatoire, a post he has held since 2000. He studied architecture and art history at Rome’s University before completing his composition studies with Azio Corghi at the Milan Conservatoire. He has attended master classes with Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter and George Benjamin, and the one-year Advanced Training Course for Young Composers held by the Toscanini Academy in Parma. Of lasting influence were a series of journeys to remote areas of Colombia to record the music and sounds of traditional Indian and mestizo communities.

From 1994 he began an extended collaboration with Luciano Berio, joining Tempo Reale, the research centre for new technologies applied to music founded by Berio in Florence, in 1996. He worked there as a composer, teacher, technologist and performer, and in 1998 became the centre’s artistic co-ordinator.

From 1997 to 1999 he was responsible for the production of Berio’s works using electronics, including Ofanim (Carnegie Hall, New York 1997 and Schleswig-Holstein Festival 1998), Outis (La Scala, Milan, and Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris) and Cronaca del Luogo (Salzburg 1999).

In 2000 he was invited by AGON, the Milan research and production centre, to work on musical (Intercos 2000) and educational (Suoni in Corso) projects. In the same year he was appointed at the Conservatoire, where he has been developing a wide range of activities and resources to integrate new technology with composition and performance.

From 2001 he has been coordinating the activities of the Thallein Ensemble, a group of advanced students devoted to new music, and has actively promoted the composition and performance of works with live electronics. In 2003 he founded the Conservatoire’s Centre for Composition and Performance with Technology.

From 2005 to 2012 he directed Integra – Fusing music and technology, a project funded by the Culture programme of the European Union, bringing together conservatoires, research centres and new music ensembles from eight countries to promote live electronic music.

Papers and articles relating to current research include Modernising live electronics technology in the works of Jonathan Harvey [ICMC Proceedings, Barcelona 2005], Modernising musical works involving Yamaha DX based synthesis: a case study [Organised Sound, vol 11 no 3, December 2006], both written in collaboration with J. Bullock, A novel approach to music with live electronics [Nordic Sounds, No. 4 December 2006], Sustainability of live electronic music in the Integra project [Melecon IEEE Proceedings, Ajaccio 2008] with J. Bullock and H. Frisk, Towards a humane graphical user interface for live electronic music [NIME Proceedings, Pittsburgh 2009] and Live Electronics in Practice: Approaches to training professional performers [Organised Sound, vol 18 no 2, August 2013].

In 2011 he completed an MBA at Warwick Business School with a dissertation on a sustainable model for higher music education, and in the last five years he has  become more involved in the management of Birmingham Conservatoire, overseeing strategic projects and the expansion of its international activities in China, South Africa and South America.