Composers

He completed his music studies at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris always awarded priority in studying with Marco Stroppa, Frédéric Durieux, and Michael Levinas.  He attended perfection courses held by Salvatore Sciarrino for composition and by Jean Guillou for the organ.   In the year 2000 he completed the course in composition and technology at IRCAM and in 2004 the composition course Voix Nouvelles in Royaumont. 
He has been invited as soloist in several important festivals such the Festival d'Automne in Paris, the festival Archipel in Geneve, The Biennale the Venezia, playing among others at the Berliner Philharmonie, the Theaterhaus in Vienna, the Ircam in Paris and the Forum Neues Musiktheater in Stuttgart, giving first performances of works by Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Oehring, Noriko Baba, Mauro Lanza, Jaques Lenot. Both as a composer and organist he has been recorded by Radio Tre, RadioFrance, SWR, RSR.
His works are published by Rai Trade and Ars Publica and performed by various ensembles such as Itinéraire, Alter Ego, Cairn, Instant donné, Atelier XX, Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble orchestral contemporain, Rhizome, Intercontemporain, Percussion de Strasbourg, Klangforum, Court-Circuit, 2E2M, Österreichisches Ensemble, Recherche, Ascolta, Icarus, Trio Mallarmé,  Next Mushrooms Promotion.
In 2006 he recived the Musikpreis Sazburg Förderpreis and the Commande of the  Reading Panel Ircam, during the same year he is composer in residence at the Academy Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart.
In 2007 won the Takefu International Prix in Japan and  became member in residence of the Casa de Velazquez in Madrid for two years.

 

"Try to imagine music which has lost the sound element. What remains is a murmuring, a skeleton, light but rich in almost mechanical sounds that are created by the hands touching and stroking the instruments. That is the music of Francesco Filidei.  His very personal style makes no compromises and over the years has not become simpler but more austere. Despite the apparently limited sphere of the kind of noises he uses, his works breathe and have taken on calmness. They are developed and in formal terms find very individual solutions which were previously unimaginable. It is not a matter of intellectual solutions but of opening up a precious and poetic world.
As regards Filidei and his music it is difficult to name aesthetic models and his points of orientation in the current musical landscape. The musique-concrète sound, the noise-like nature could be a reference to Lachenmann or to specific works by Kagel, but the fantastic and astonishing absurdity of the mood of this music brings to mind individual figures like those of Harry Partch.
In this music rhythm, pulse and abrupt caesurae become the primary structure in order to guarantee recognition in the changes and the incredibly efficient non-continuity of form. With the unusual kind of sound phenomena his music extends the borders of our perceptive abilities.  Furthermore, Filidei has functionally refined his graphic notation with regard to possibilities of musical articulation and musical relationships.
"The following also appears to me to be important: the persistence and consistency of the composer along a solitary and difficult path, his rich musical productivity (although he is only 32 years old!) and in particular nowadays the rare originality of his work.  It should also be stressed that Filidei has greatly enriched the organ repertoire (the organ is his instrument). He makes himself and his virtuosity as a performer available to other more or less younger composers and challenges them to make a creative analysis of this instrument".

(Salvatore Sciarrino )