Biography (Italian version here)

Claudio Pompili, born in 1949, at Gorizia, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy. He is a composer and music consultant currently enrolled as a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. In 2004 he was interim Executive Director of Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre Inc (NMAC), Adelaide. During the period 1998-2001, he was Associate Professor, at the University of Wollongong (UOW), and CEO/Director of the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music (WCM). From 1987 to 1997, he was a member of the University of New England (UNE) Department of Music's academic staff and Head of Music Department (1995-97) and Senior Lecturer (1992-97).

As interim Executive Director of NMAC, he was responsible for: (1) the artistic program including Nexus' 'Rugs of War' and 'Universal Families' events at the Adelaide Festival 2004, and Kultour multicutlural arts touring network development of strategic planning, implementation of 2004 Kultour program (inbound/outbound touring) and development of the 2005 Nexus/Kultour proposal; (2) financial and operational management including development of accounting and workplace structures, FilemakerPro database solutions including creation of new 'Program and Activities' quantitative reporting and CCD cultural audit database solutions, funding agency grant evaluations/acquittals (Arts SA/Australia Council), and major submission of Arts SA Organisations/Triennial grant 18 June 2004 comprising new Nexus Business Plan; and (3) special projects/initiatives including creation of Nexus web site: live in February 2004 and the Nexus Business Plan 2004–2007 including Risk Management and Delivery Plan 2005.

His managerial experience, as CEO/Director, WCM, comprised: (1) comprehensive executive and administrative duties, industrial relations, and financial control of company; (2) pedagogic and artistic leadership to staff (approximately 60 part-time teachers and 10 administrative staff); (3) duty of care and stewardship of the student body comprising 1700 enrolments annually; (4) development of strategic planning, funding initiatives, internal reviews, media communications, community and political representation; (5) negotiations/collaborations with external bodies including senior executives of Regional and State Government agencies; and (6) development, implementation and programming of Information Technology and Management Information systems. The highlights of his leadership achievements at the WCM are: an increase of over 500% in funding for Regional Conservatorium Music Centres from $600,000 to $3.2million (announced June 2001 by the NSW Premier, Hon Bob Carr); a Wollongong City Council grant for rental relief of $25,000/pa; and an Illawarra Mutual Building Society grant of $50,000/pa over two years for development of WCM's Childhood Music Education Program Project. His achievements are UNE were ground-breaking developments in: development of new markets in partnership with a range of music organisations including JMC Academy (Sydney) and the Defence Forces Music College (Melbourne); and development of various new course in traditional and then-cutting edge web-based technologies.

His academic activities at UOW included course development, professional and research activities, occasional presentation of undergraduate seminars, and postgraduate supervision. For many years, he has acted as external examiner/assessor for postgraduate theses (up to PhD) and Australian Research Council (ARC) assessments.

Prior to 1998, at UNE, his activities included teaching of composition in instrumental and electronic/computer musics, musicology and ethnomusicology at undergraduate level. He supervised a range of postgraduate degree students including MLitt, MMus and PhD. He established a modest-sized state-of-the-art MIDI electronic/computer music studio in 1988 with a view to recording of performances and compositional facilities. Activities in the multicultural sphere included inter-disciplinary lectures, seminars and musico-literary evenings with the UNE Departments of Italian, and Aboriginal and Multicultural Studies. In the wider community, he founded the Dish Association as a community project to bring SBS-TV and ABC-FM radio to Armidale via satellite facilities.

His specialist interests are: music notation, computer-assisted composition, performance and music printing; music in film and theatre; video art; New Music in Italy and Australia in the Post-WWII period; and Electronic and Computer Musics. He has acted as expert assessor for a number of Large Grant Australian Research Council (ARC) applications from 1995 to the present day.

His musical background ranges from playing popular music to formal studies in classical guitar, electronic and computer music, and composition. From 1965&endash;79, he had a successful early career as lead guitarist with various leading Adelaide bands including Coloured Rain, Brass Buckle and Gamble. Various highlights during this time include: 2nd place in Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds (1969); interstate tours; appeared in state and national TV pop shows, including Melbourne ATVO's Up-Tight and NSW-9's Move; frequent reviews/interviews in national pop music magazine Go-Set; and released three singles on SUNSHINE and PEPPER labels.

In 1980, he began his studies in composition and electronic music with Richard Meale, Tristram Cary and Bozidar Kos at the University of Adelaide's former Elder Conservatorium of Music (now Elder School of Music), South Australia (1980&endash;4). He was recipient of two scholarships for composition: the Alex Burnard Scholarship (1983), and an Italian Government Scholarship (1984). In Italy, he studied with the highly acclaimed Italian composers Franco Donatoni and Salvatore Sciarrino (see my Composers' Links pages).

In 1982, while still a student, he founded the Adelaide-based Composers' Collective and was its President until 1984. The Collective organised forums and regular concerts of contemporary music and released an audio cassette of some of the music performed at these concerts. He was joint curator of an art and technology exhibition entitled INTERFACE, part of the 1984 Adelaide Festival of Arts; and Project Officer for the arts organisation Focus: Adelaide Festival Fringe in 1987.

His interest in manual and computer-assisted notation prompted him to attend the 1984 International Computer Music Conference, organised by Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris, and its satellite conference, Music Editing and Printing by Computer. Since then he has worked as a music copyist for G. Ricordi publishers (Italy), preparing Salvatore Sciarrino's score of Allegoria della Notte, and for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in Adelaide.

Combining his interests in theatre, Italian and Australian contemporary music, and electronic music, he worked as Musical Director/Composer/Sound Designer with the Adelaide-based multicultural theatre group Doppio Teatro. In 1999/2000 he was composer/sound designer in the critically-acclaimed mixed-media/electro-acoustic opera, The Last Child… flight of the swallows, whose graphic score was part of the visual arts exhibition, Verve: The Other Writing, in the 2000 Telstra Adelaide Festival of Arts. It was subsequently performed at the 11th Sydney Spring: International Festival of New Music, Sydney Opera House, August 2000.

He composed music for two plays staged by the company in 1987: Just Call Me Jo and La Madonna Emigrante. Just Call Me Jo was performed in secondary high schools as part of the theatre-in-education programme of the Adelaide Come Out Festival. It was subsequently performed at the ASSITEJ International Youth Drama Conference and received critical acclaim. La Madonna Emigrante was performed at the 1987 Italian Festival in Adelaide, and has since been performed in a shorter concert version and also produced as a radio drama; the latter was selected as a finalist in the Drama Section, 1993 New York International Radio Festival. He has also worked as a sound designer for the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, and collaborated with Dr Geoffrey Borny of the UNE&endash;Armidale Drama Department on the latter's production of Hamlet. The resulting cycle of Songs for Ophelia has received frequent stage and broadcast performances and has been recorded by the ABC.

In 1989 he was awarded full representation at the Australian Music Centre. His chamber work Citlalin Tlamina was selected as a finalist in the 1989 International Composition Competition (Miami, Florida). Two of his works were chosen as Australian submissions for World Music Days (String Quartet No.1 in 1984 and Elegia from The Polymnia Triptych in 1990), and his wind quintet (Zeitfluß) was awarded the 1990 Adolf Spivakovsky Scholarship for the Composition of Music. He was honoured with a prestigious New Music Series' Composer Portrait Concert held in Toronto (Canada) in 1990, at which his work for baroque flute and percussion, Lo spazio stellato si riflette in suoni…, was premiered. In 1994 he was invited to participate in the June in Buffalo Composers' Festival (State University of New York at Buffalo, USA) and workshop presided over by a distinguished panel of senior composers including Milton Babbitt and Roger Reynolds. His work for double-bass solo, Scherzo alla Francescana, was premiered at that festival.

His compositions appear on a number of compact discs including Anthology of Australian Music on Disc (Canberra School of Music) 1989; Strange Companions: New Music for Baroque Flute and Percussion (ARTIFACT, Toronto) 1991; The Last Child… flight of the swallows: Live Preview (doppio parallelo) 2000; and several solo recordings produced by Selve Amiche Publications (SAP), Opera: Il Chiosco Del Limpido Autunno 2000; Scherzo 2000; Amore e Tacere 1999; La Madonna Emigrante III: Sound Track&endash;Music Narrative 1999; SPAZIO 1996; and CANTO 1996.

He is a member of numerous music organisations including the Board of the http://www.amcoz.com.au/amc.htm, Advisory Panel of the Australian International Conservatorium of Music, Music Arrangers' Guild of Australia, Fellowship of Australian Composers, Musicological Society of Australia, and Institute of Music Teachers.

From 1999 to 2001 he was foundation Treasurer of the Association of Regional Conservatorium Music Centres (ARCM) and in 1995 and 1996 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the National Council of Heads of Tertiary Music Institutions (NACHTMUS), and two of its working parties. During 1989 he acted as committee member of the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA) (Northern NSW Branch). He was elected President of the Branch in 1990. He is a full Writer Member of Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and is listed in the numerous dictionaries and biographies including 2000 Outstanding Musicians of the 20th Century, Who's Who in Australasia and the Far East and The Oxford Companion to Australian Music.

His compositions have been included in anthologies and he has been the recipient of numerous commissions. Scores and recordings of his music are available from the Australian Music Centre, Sydney.

Iniziò la sua esperienza musicale nel campo della musica leggera, diplomandosi più tardi in chitarra classica. Nel 1980 divenne socio sia dell'Istituto di Maestri di Musica (Member of the Institute of Music Teachers-MIMT) sia della Società Australiana per l'Istruzione Musicale (Australian Society for Music Education-ASME). Nel 1982 divenne «libero docente» della Federazione Australiana Associazione Maestri di Musica (Federation of Australian Music Teachers Association-FAMTA), e fondò la Composers' Collective di Adelaide di cui fu presidente fino al 1984; nello stesso anno curò la mostra artistico-tecnologica INTERFACE del Festival of Arts di Adelaide.

Si laureò presso l'Elder Conservatorium dell'Università di Adelaide nel 1983, con i celebri maestri John della Torre, Richard Meale, Tristram Cary e Bozidar Kos. Si è specializzato in chitarra classica, composizione, musica elettronica e computerizzata. Vincitore di due importanti borse di studio per composizione: l'Alex Burnard (1983) e la borsa di studio del Governo Italiano (1984), ha studiato con i noti maestri Franco Donatoni e Salvatore Sciarrino. Per la casa editrice G Ricordi (Italia) ha curato gli spartiti di Allegoria della Notte del Maestro Salvatore Sciarrino.

La passione per il teatro, la musica contemporanea italiana e australiana e la musica elettronica lo spinse ad accettare il posto di direttore musicale della famosa compagnia multiculturale Doppio Teatro. Nel 1987 fu incaricato di scrivere la musica per le acclamate opere Just Call Me Joe e La Madonna Emigrante. Nel 1993 La Madonna Emigrante fu scelta dal New York International Radio Festival.

La sua musica da camera, Citlalin Tlamina, fu tra le opere finaliste scelte dal 1989 International Composition Competition (Miami, Florida). String Quartet n.1 (1984) e l'Elegia del Polymnia Triptych (1990) furono presentate dalla giuria australiana al World Music Days. Il quintetto per strumenti a fiato Zeitfluß vinse, nel 1990, il premio Adolf Spivakovsky. Claudio Pompili fu poi invitato a partecipare alla personale (Composer Portrait Concert) organizzata dal New Music Series di Toronto, Canada.

Nel 1990, l'Australian Music Centre, dopo avere esaminato le opere dei maggiori compositori australiani, lo nominò «compositore di interesse nazionale».

Nel 1994 Claudio Pompili fu invitato a partecipare al June in Buffalo Composers' Festival , University of New York, alla cui manifestazione parteciparono, tra gli altri, anche Milton Babbitt e Roger Reynolds. Due composizioni, Medieval Purity in a Bed of Thorns e Lo specchio del fiore sono state registrate commercialmente su «compilation»CD. Due altri CD monografici sono stati publicati in 1996, Claudio Pompili:SPAZIO and Claudio Pompili:CANTO da Selve Amiche Publications (SA).

Dal 1989, Claudio Pompili compone esclusivamente per ensemble nazionali ed internazionali, tra i quali Duo Contemporain (Olanda), Strange Companions (Canada) e Perihelion (Australia).