Michele Tadini appointed Artistic Director of the Music Department

Composer Michele Tadini is the new Artistic Director of the Music Department for the two-year period 2027-2028. The appointment was approved by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, after thanking Caterina Barbieri and expressing the utmost appreciation for her commitment and excellent results she achieved. The next International Festival of Contemporary Music under the direction of Michele Tadini will take place in Venice from 2 to 16 October 2027.

“Michele Tadini’s is an original  body of research – stated Pietrangelo Buttafuoco – that has contributed to the evolution of electronic music and real-time interaction systems, without ever losing sight of the profoundly human dimension of the experience. To him, music is a living and interdisciplinary language that can bring together theatre, the visual arts, dance and the new technologies. He has a special bond with La Biennale di Venezia, in which he has participated on many occasions as a composer, musician and author of works, performances and installations. I am therefore more than pleased to announce his appointment as director of the Music Department, in keeping with his rigorous research and special attention to the training of the upcoming generations”.

Upon receiving his appointment, Michele Tadini stated: “I am deeply grateful and honoured. Over a lifetime of work, learning, research, hypotheses, definitions, order and disorder, every composer/researcher asks questions about music, its reasons, its necessities. Seeking answers, they search their souls, and form convictions about what to do and what to say. I have now been entrusted to give concrete shape to these thoughts. In addition to gratitude, I feel a deep sense of responsibility. What I will say and do will not only be an expression of what I believe is important, it must also be important for the public and for music itself. This ambition, which is inseparable from a sense of responsibility, will guide me in my decisions and in building a project which I can already glimpse, but which will take shape through dialogue, through my work and collaboration with the entire Biennale team”.

An important voice in international electro-acoustic and computer music research and at the head of major centres for musical production in Italy, Michele Tadini brings to his music an experimental attitude with joyful inventiveness that plays upon the interaction between sound and image. With a versatile production that spans symphonic music, installations, and scores for theatre, dance, radio, cinema and television, Michele Tadini has presented his music in festivals around the world, receiving commissions from the major institutions. Invited many times to the Biennale, not only for Biennale Musica, but for Biennale Danza and Biennale Architettura as well, last year the Milan-born composer curated the special project for the Historical Archive titled Arcipelago Battiato, a personal tribute to the Sicilian composer and philosopher.

Michele Tadini (Milan, 1964) - A composer, guitarist, and professor of composition (mixed. Music) at the Conservatoire nationale supérieure di musique et dance in Lyon. He graduated from the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan: in guitar mentored by Ruggero Chiesa, in composition mentored by Sandro Gorli and Giacomo Manzoni and in electronic music mentored by Riccardo Sinigaglia. He attended classes by Franco Donatoni at the Scuola Civica di Milano and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, where he earned a “Diploma di Merito” in 1989. In 1998 he attended IRCAM’s “stage d’automne”.
With Luca Francesconi, he co-directed Agon-acustica informatica musica, a research and production centre based in Milan with which he continues to work on a variety of projects as a composer and artistic director. He has co-directed the Centro Tempo Reale in Florence and directed the contemporary music section of IRMus at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan.
His music has been presented at La Biennale di Venezia, Milano Musica, the Ravenna Festival and Maison de Radio France in Paris, with performances across Europe, the United States, Latin America, Canada and Japan. He has received commissions, among others, from the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, RAI and Art Zoyd.
His acknowledgments include: Prix Italia 2008 for the radio composition La Musica Nascosta and the Prix A.R.T.S. 2011 (Art, Research, Technology, Science) for his project La Terza Luce.
Michele Tadini also composes for theatre, dance, video, interactive installations, radio, television and cinema. His best-known creations include In a Blink of a Night, for 100 electric guitars, bass, drums and solo guitar, Tamburi nella  Notte for five percussion ensembles, Kirkias, a video production, Distanza di sicurezza – a video-dance production and Le nuove, mirabilanti avventure di Walter Ego with Claudio Bisio, stage music.
In addition to composition he also works in electronic realisation and sound direction,  which he was responsible for in particular for the 2019 Paris production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, based on the project by Luciano Berio.  His most recent projects include: Found in Translation, an electronic album conceived as a manifesto for his approach to making music; Arcipelago Battiato, created with Leonardo Marino and Thierry Coduys for La Biennale di Venezia; La Ballata delle Donne, set to a text by Edoardo Sanguineti, which was premiered by the Coro da camera Vikra at the Ravenna Festival in 2026.
His music is published by SZ Sugar.