Giovanni Albini - A Contemporary Ukulele (2022)

Giovanni Albini (b. 1982), composer, ukulelist and music theorist, is a tenured professor of Music Theory, Solfège and Music Perception and head of research at the Conservatory “Antonio Vivaldi” of Alessandria (Italy), where he also teaches the first Italian ukulele university class. He also teaches Composition at the Conservatory of Lugano (Swiss Confederation), and is an academic member of the Istituto di Studi Superiori dell’Insubria “Gerolamo Cardano”.
He has composed several concert music scores that have been performed by international soloists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world (Europe, USA, Canada and Japan), as well as many tracks for video art, exhibitions, multimedia, commercials, trailers, videogames and television. His music has been recorded in monographic albums and collections and published by Brilliant Classics, Da Vinci Publishing, and Stradivarius.
His theoretical research focus on algebraic and geometrical formalization of musical elements, mathematically informed aesthetics, quantitative methods in music analysis and composition, new technologies for composition and music didactics, and ukulele's technique and arranging features. He has given lectures, paper presentations and masterclasses at many universities, conservatories and institutions, including: Yale University (New Haven, USA), Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, USA), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico City), Open University (Milton Keynes, UK), Lithuanian Union of Composers (Vilnius, Lithuania), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and Biennale di Venezia (Italy).
He is a ukulelist devoted to the modern and classical reportoire and he commissions and performs new contemporary classical music written for the ukulele and transcribe classical and renowned contemporary and twentieth century scores for it, fostering the development of a new challenging and cultivated ukulele repertoire and aiming to deepen and evolve the idiomatic unique features of the instrument. He is the founding co-director of the First Ukulele International Conference (UIC 2021) – Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Performance, Composition, and Organology, hosted by the Department of Cultural Heritage and Environment of the University of Milan (Italy). He is the founding Artistic Director of the highSCORE New Music Center and of the highSCORE Festival, today’s principal Italian Contemporary Music Festival offering masterclasses.
He studied Composition at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of Milan, where he achieved his bachelor and master degree of music. He subsequently received a ‘diploma di perfezionamento’ in Composition at the prestigious Accademia Nazionale di “Santa Cecilia” in Rome. He also completed a bachelor and a master of science in Mathematics and graduated in Classical Guitar. He received his PhD in Composition from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn. His mentors in composition include Ivan Fedele, Mario Garuti, Paul Glass, Toivo Tulev, and Tõnu Kõrvits. His mentors in guitar include Maurizio Preda, Roberto Pinciroli, and Betho Davezac.
He is an Aquila Corde Armoniche official endorser.