DCV 560 – Maximiliano Amici: The Pit and the Pendulum

Maximiliano Amici, disciple of Luciano Pelosi and Stephen Jaffe, earned his master’s in music composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. He also holds diplomas in electronic music and conducting from the same Conservatory, as well as a diploma in piano performance from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatory in Naples. He joined the doctoral program in composition at Duke University after a period of specialization in avantgarde music at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel, with Prof. Erik Oña. He earned his Ph.D. in music composition at Duke in September 2021. His dissertation is a dramatic cantata for baritone, large chamber ensemble, male choir and electronics based on The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe, for which he also authored the libretto. His music has been played and recorded by several prominent chamber groups (Parco della Musica Contemporanea Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, Deviant Septet, JACK Quartet, amongst others). The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI recorded his orchestral piece Flowing under the baton of Yoichi Sugiyama. He is also active as an electronic musician; the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and the Zeiträume Festival Basel have hosted his installations. Presently, he is Assistant Professor of Music and Composition at Duke Kunshan University, in China.

Maximiliano Amici, disciple of Luciano Pelosi and Stephen Jaffe, earned his master’s in music composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome. He also holds diplomas in electronic music and conducting from the same Conservatory, as well as a diploma in piano performance from the S. Pietro a Majella Conservatory in Naples.

  Maximiliano Amici Piano Works Igor Cognolato

"Creativity is an unconscious act of insanity, in a burst of which the truth is born. No matter how beautiful or disgusting it may seem to people far from madness, its value is beyond doubt, both for the author and for those able to sense its invisible beauty. After all, gratitude for endless trials and suffering brings joy and blissful emptiness… Being shocked by music is about pain turning into beauty and getting under your skin, taking away your breath; about everything stopping to move. I want to be scratched inside by sound and experience the fleeting, invisible beauty." - Maxim Shalygin

Education Michael has a degree in English Literature from the State University of New York. Despite having no formal music education, he has an active international career in several aspects of the music business.

Celia Swart (1994, NL) is a new music composer, saxophone player and visual artist. Growing up playing saxophone and piano, she found her love for composing.