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Fabio Cifariello Ciardi (1960) is a composer using instruments, sounds and technologies to mine real-world data. His current interest is in the transcription of speaking-voice rhythms and inflections for solo instruments and ensembles. He studied composition with Franco Donatoni (Accademia S.Cecilia, Rome), Tristan Murail and Philippe Manoury (IRCAM).
He has been composer-in-residence at EMS (Stockholm) and IMEB (Bourges).
His compositions have been awarded at "Ennio Porrino 1989" (Cagliari), "L. Russolo 1992" (Varese), "MusicaNova 1993" (Praha - Czech), "ICMC Cd selection 1993" (Tokyo - Japan), "Olympia 1993" (Athens - Greek), "Spectri Sonori93" (Tulane - USA), XXV Concours Int. de Musique Électroacoustique 1998 (Bourges - France), Valentino Bucchi 1999 (Roma - Italy), Premio Nuova Musica - 39° Concorso Internazionale di Canto Corale C.A.Seghizzi (Gorizia - Italy) international competitions.
His music is published and recorded by Raicom, Curci, ICMA, CNI-LaFrontiera, Unesco CIME-Cultures Electroniques (Bourges, France), Mudima - Cramps Records, SiltaClassic, Edipan.
His works have been commissioned by Biennale di Venezia, Fondazione ITeatri di Reggio Emilia, Ravenna Festival, Divertimento Ensemble - Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, Instituts für Neue Musik di Friburgo, Orchestra Haydn di Trento e Bolzano, Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, Orchestra MilanoClassica, Orchestra di Roma e del Lazio, Stockholm Electronic Music Studio, IMEB Bourges, Halle 14 Leipzig & ACC Gallery Weimar, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi Firenze, Agon-Centro Armando Gentilucci, Exnovo Ensemble.
Since 2001, he has been composing and performing live soundtracks for silent films with the Edison Studio collective. These include Inferno (1911), The Last Days of Pompeii (1913), Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1919), Battleship Potemkin (1925) and Blackmail (1929). All of these films have been published on DVD by the Cineteca di Bologna in the Il Cinema Ritrovato series and have won awards at the VideoEvento d'Arte 2000 (Turin, Italy), the HK.5 Rimusicazioni Film Festival 2003 (Bolzano, Italy) and the AITS "Best Sound in Italian Motion Pictures 2011" (Rome, Italy).
In 2006 Arte.tv has produced the Piroschka Dossi's and Nico Weber's documentary Contre-attaque - Quand l'Art prend l'économie pour Cible: La Spéculation/ Gegenangriff - Wirtschaft im Fadenkreuz der Kunst: Spekulation about Cifariello Ciardi's sonifications of stock market data.
He has developed software/algorithms for dissonance calculation, sound spatialization, financial data sonification, speaking-voice musical transcription and other computer-aided composition tools. Cifariello Ciardi collaborates with the Italian National radio RAI-Radio3
In 2021, his paper Strategies and tools for the sonification of prosodic data: a composer's perspective has won the Best Paper Award at the 26th International Conference on Auditory Display.
Fabio Cifariello Ciardi is tenured professor of Composition, coordinator of the PhD program in Sound Studies and Sonic Art at the “F.A. Bonporti” Conservatory in Trento (www.conservatorio.tn.it), and coordinator of the international project Sounding Images - Screening Sounds.
His latest work, Hind for ensemble, commissioned by the FontanaMix Ensemble, is based on the final words of Hind Rajab, a young Palestinian girl who was killed by the Israeli army on 29 January 2024 alongside six other members of her family and two paramedics who had gone to her aid. It is a contribution to lifting veils, our own.
In 2026, he will work on a commission for the Tetraktis Percussioni ensemble.
(Last updated: February 2026)