Luca Francesconi studied composition with Azio Corghi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio and jazz at the Boston Berklee College of Music. He also worked as Luciano Berio’s assistant between 1981 and1 984. In 1990 he founded Agon Acustica Informatica Musica in Milano, a musical research center for production and new technologies. He has written more than one hundred works, from soloist to large orchestra to multimedia, commissioned by the most important international musical institutions. Among his most recent works: Duende – The Dark Notes, concert for violin and orchestra written for Leila Josefowicz, winner of the “Royal Philharmonic Society Award” at BBC Proms, conductor Susanna Mälkki; Piano Concerto commissioned by Casa da Musica of Porto, written for Nicolas Hodges, conductor Jonathan Stockhammer; Dentro Non Ha Tempo commissioned by La Scala Orchestra, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, a tribute to Luciana Abbado Pestalozza; Macchine in Echo concerto for two pianos and orchestra written for the Grau-Schumaker duo, commissioned by WestDeutschRundfunk Köln , conductor Peter Rundel; das Ding singt, concert for cello and orchestra commissioned by Luzern Festival, written for Jay Campbell, conductor Matthias Pintcher; ”Trompe-la-Mort”, libretto written by the composer from Honoré de Balzac, opera commissioned by the Opera Bastille, and performed in Paris, March 2017; Daedalus, for flute and ensemble, written for the Boulez Ensemble and Emmanuel Pahud, and premiered at the Boulez Saal in January 2018 under the baton of Daniel Baremboim, commissioner of the piece.
His opera Quartett ( libretto by the composer from Heiner Müller) commissioned by La Scala in 2011, with the direction of the FURA dels Baus (winner of the prize of critics 'Franco Abbiati' 2011), has been performed more than eighty times all over the world, in seven new productios. A new production of Quartett will be staged at the Dortmund Opera (April 2019) and, a rather exceptional event for a contemporary opera, it has been scheduled again at La Scala in October 2019.
After the new World Premiere of Trauma Etudes commissioned by the Library of Washington for Ensemble Signal and ZERO FORMULA for electric guitar and orchestra commissioned by the Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon, Francesconi is currently working on Timon of Athens, a new Opera for the Bayerische StaatsOper of München, scheduled for 2020 with Kent Nagano as conductor. He is also working on a new concerto for violin and orchestra for Patricia Kopatschinskaia.
Luca Francesconi works as a conductor as well. He has been teaching for 35 years both in Italian conservatories and in master classes worldwide. He is professor and head of the composition department at the Musikhögskolan of Malmö, Sweden.
After leaving the direction of AGON in 2004, in the same year founded the Festival “Connect” in Malmö. In 2005 he founded the “Musical invention Lab” at the “Le Settimane Musicali di Stresa” with the Norwegian Ensemble BIT 20 in residence. From 2008 to 2011 he was the artistic director of the Venice Biennale Musica, where he invented and coordinated four Festivals. During this important experience he endorsed the repertoire ( the Leone d`oro assigned to Lachenmann, Kurtag, Eotvos and Rihm) but he was also committed to involve the creative forces of the city of Venice. The core idea was to experience new formats of poliyensorial event as a `variable geometry` named EXIT, that could deeply change the perception of new music, cross relating it with different artistic disciplines and installed in open forms of time and space. In 2011 he was also appointed as artistic consultant at the Ultima festival in Oslo.
In 2018 he won the Feltrinelli Prize of Accademia dei Lincei in Rome and the Prix Italiques.
In October 2019 in occasion of La Scala reviving of the original production of his opera Quartett with La Fura del Baus Production, the MILANO MUSICA Festival will dedicate the 2019 edition to the work of Luca Francesconi with a full immersion in his music in a lot of concerts.

Supported by Italian Insitute for Culture in Moscow