Luca Francesconi (born 17 March 1956) is an Italian composer. He studied at the Milan Conservatory, then with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio.
Early years
Luca Francesconi was born in Milan. His father was a painter who edited Il Corriere dei piccoli and conceived Il Corriere dei ragazzi, while his mother was an advertiser. Francesconi spent his early years in QT8, a working class quarter in Milan. At the age of five he began to learn the piano. Although he was accepted into the junior high school section of the city's conservatory six years later, he pulled out. Instead, Francesconi opted to attend the junior high school in QT8.
Education
We need to profoundly rethink and filter in a determined way the enormously rich potential that has been elaborated in the past and to use it for expressive purposes.
Francesconi returned to the Conservatory of Milan in 1974, while he was still attending the Berchet Classical Languages High School, and explored the musical landscape, taking an interest in different sounds. He played in jazz and rock groups as well as in classical concerts. Francesconi worked as a session man in recording studios, and composed music for theatre, cinema, advertising, and television.
He realised that a truly living language, while looking at the present, draws its lifeblood from its roots. Francesconi delved deeper into the traditions of music to which he belonged. The Milan Conservatory was opening more and more space to contemporary music, so Francesconi enrolled in the composition course conducted by Azio Corghi. "From him I learnt the trade, the fundamentals, counterpoint and those things, professional seriousness and open-mindedness." In the meantime he continued to explore electronic music and in 1977 took time out to immerse himself in jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
A student of Karlheinz Stockhausen
The mountain is in front of us, and it is necessary to pass over it, with enormous force and patience. It's not enough just to contemplate it nor to sneak by it via secondary paths much less go backwards claiming that the mountain is not there.
Donnerstag aus Licht went on stage at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1981. Stockhausen is a historical reference point: Francesconi admired him for his extraordinary organisational consistency, for his tireless search for a linguistic unity. He was also deeply struck by the visionary quality of this initial opera. He wanted to observe the composer at work, so he enrolled in the intensive course that Stockhausen held in Rome that same year. "From him I learnt rigor, at first imbibing it by osmosis, and then demythologising it."[7]
Meeting and collaboration with Luciano Berio
Luciano didn't talk much about the more 'technical' and delicate aspects of his work as a composer. I remember that when he least expected it, I would fire questions at him point-blank, hoping to pick up some tips. His replies were like enigmas. They had something sacral about them and they required divining rituals to decode them. Berio Francesconi studied above all in the field, just like the workshop artisans of old, acting as his assistant from 1981 to 1984. He worked directly on the score of La vera storia and participated in the production as rehearsal pianist and second conductor/substitute maestro. In 1984 he collaborated with the composer in the rewriting of Monteverdi's Orfeo. He was also present with Berio at Tanglewood where he attended one of his famous summer courses.