Themusic of Italy has traditionally been one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in society and in politics. Italian music innovation – in musical scale, harmony, notation, and theatre – enabled the development of opera, in the late 16th century, and much of modern European classical music – such as the symphony and concerto – ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and popular music drawn from both native and imported sources.
Diego Carpitella was an Italian professor of ethnomusicology at D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara and La Sapienza University in Rome. He is considered one of the greatest scholars of Italian folk music and has written and published many essays on the subject. He collaborated with the Centro Nazionale Studi di Musica Popolare from 1952 to 1958, collecting more than 5,000 Italian folk songs. He was also the founding editor of the journal Culture musicali and a co-founder of the cultural magazine Marcatre.
Italian folk music has a deep and complex history. National unification came quite late to the Italian peninsula, so its many hundreds of separate cultures remained un-homogenized until quite recently compared to many other European countries. Moreover, Italian folk music reflects Italy's geographic position at the south of Europe and in the center of the Mediterranean Sea: Celtic, Slavic, Arabic, Greek, Spanish and Byzantine influences are readily apparent in the musical styles of the Italian regions. Italy's rough geography and the historic dominance of small city states has allowed quite diverse musical styles to coexist in close proximity.
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, founded by the papal bull Ratione congruit, issued by Sixtus V in 1585, which invoked two saints prominent in Western musical history: Gregory the Great, for whom the Gregorian chant is named, and Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Since 2005 it has been headquartered at the Renzo Piano designed Parco della Musica in Rome.
The culture of music in Rome is intensely active. The venues for live music include:
The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia is an Italian symphony orchestra based in Rome. Resident at the Parco della Musica, the orchestra primarily performs its Rome concerts in the Sala Santa Cecilia.
Leo Levi (1912–1982) was an Italian musicologist.
Maria Carta was a Sardinian folk music singer-songwriter. She also performed in film and theatre. In 1975 she wrote a book of poetry, Canto rituale.
Parco della Musica is a public music complex in Rome, Italy, with three concert halls and an outdoor theater in a park setting. It was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. Jürgen Reinhold of Müller-BBM was in charge of acoustics for the halls; Franco Zagari was landscape architect for the outdoor spaces. Parco della Musica lies where the 1960 Summer Olympic Games were held, somewhat north of Rome's ancient center, and is home to most of the facilities of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Gerard Henri Béhague was an eminent Franco-American ethnomusicologist and professor of Latin American music. His specialty was the music of Brazil and the Andean countries and the influence of West Africa on the music of the Caribbean and South America, especially candomblé music. His lifelong work earned him recognition as the leading scholar of Latin American ethnomusicology.
Mario Zafred was an Italian composer, music critic, and opera director. He also served as the president of various Italian music conservatories including the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
The Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Musical Instruments Museum (MUSA) is the museum holding the instruments collection of musical instruments of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Lucio Gregoretti is an Italian composer. He composed stage operas, symphonic and chamber music, electro-acoustic music, as well as incidental music for theatre plays, musical comedies, and film scores.
Piero Niro is an Italian composer, classical pianist, and academic specialising in the philosophy of music and aesthetics.
Sylvia Haydée Kersenbaum is an Argentine pianist, composer and teacher. Among other things, she is recognized for performing the complete cycle of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas twice, and her music for the ballet The Masque of the Red Death, based on a story by Edgar Allan Poe.
The Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia is a state conservatory in Rome.
Luca Antignani is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music. He is also an academic, teaching in Switzerland and France.
The Italian Navy Band is an Italian military band based in Rome which serves under the Italian Navy. The band was established in 1870 in La Spezia and is one of the oldest Italian military band units in the Italian Armed Forces. In 1965, it was transferred to Taranto before it was finally relocated to Rome in 1991. The band conducts concerts both in Italy and abroad, performing for international audiences as well as performing for charity, as is in the case of the concert held in 2004 at the International Center for Peace among the Peoples of Assisi. Common Italian venues the band performs in includes the Milan Auditorium, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Parco della Musica, and the Teatro di San Carlo. The band is currently composed of a conductor, a vice conductor, an archivist, as well as 102 NCO musicians drawn from music universities all over the country.
Franco Venturini, is an Italian musician based in Paris. From the earliest age he demonstrated an uncommon attitude towards classical music, which led him to pursue a musical career. He started as a pianist, later devoting himself to composition mainly in the fields of contemporary classical music and electronic music.
Fabio Mengozzi is an Italian composer and pianist.
