Biography
Composer, researcher, and teacher Marco Stroppa (Verona, 1959) studied music in Italy, specializing in piano, choral music and conducting, composition, and electronic music. He furthered his studies at MIT’s Media Laboratory, focusing on computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. From 1980 to 1984, he worked at the Centre for Computational Sonology in Padua, where he composed Traiettoria, a work that immediately achieved considerable success and continues to be regularly performed.
In 1982, Pierre Boulez invited him to join IRCAM in Paris, starting a collaboration that has been pivotal to his musical development.
As a highly respected educator, Stroppa founded the Workshop of Composition and Computer Music at the International Bartok Seminar in Szombathely, Hungary, where he taught for 13 years. In 1999, he was appointed full professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts (Musikhochschule) in Stuttgart. He has also taught at the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires of Music (CNSMD).
Stroppa’s catalogue includes numerous works for orchestra, traditional instruments, electronic instruments, radio operas, theatrical music and context-dependent pieces, e.g., his score for the performance piece Race by Pascal Rambert, premiered at the October Festival in Normandy in 1997. Among his major works are: Traiettoria (1982-84) for piano and computer, Hiranyaloka (1993-94) and Ritratti senza volto (2007) for orchestra, Zwielicht (1998) for double bass, two percussion players, and electronics, Perché non riusciamo a vederla? (2008) for 24-part choir and alto, the trios Hommage à Gy.K. (2004) and Osja: Seven Strophes for a Literary Drone (2005), Come play with me (2018), a concerto for solo electronics and orchestra, and a series of concertos for instruments and spatialized orchestra or ensemble inspired by the poems of W.B. Yeats (Upon a Blade of Grass, From Needle’s Eye, Let Me Sing into Your Ear).
His first opera, Re Orso, based on a text by Arrigo Boito, premiered to great acclaim in May 2012 at the Opéra Comique in Paris.
His most recent major commissions include Lance dei crepuscoli (2022-2023) for electroacoustic totem and ambisonic system by IRCAM-Centre Pompidou and Come play with me (2016) for solo electronics and orchestra by SWR Symphonieorchester.