Francesco Filidei was born in Pisa on May 5, 1973. He studied at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. As both a composer and an organist, he has been invited to major contemporary music festivals and institutions worldwide.
His catalogue encompasses a wide range of genres, including opera, orchestral and chamber music, ensemble works, choral music and oratorio. His first opera, Giordano Bruno, received its world premiere in 2015 in Porto, Portugal, and has since been performed in theatres throughout Europe. His second opera, L’inondation, with a libretto by Joël Pommerat, was composed for the 2019 season of the Opéra Comique in Paris, Opéra de Rennes and Opéra de Nantes, and was revived in Paris and Luxembourg in 2023. His grand opera Il nome della rosa (2025) was commissioned by Teatro alla Scala and the Opéra de Paris, in co-production with Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. His next opera, Accabadora, will be premiered at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2026.
Filidei’s works have been performed by leading international orchestras, including WDR, SWR, RSO Wien, RAI, Tokyo Philharmonic, BRSO, and the Philharmonic Orchestras of Monte Carlo, Nice, Picardie, Helsinki, Vilnius and Warsaw. His music is also regularly featured by major specialist ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien and Musikfabrik, and has been presented in prominent venues including the Berlin Philharmonie, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, Suntory Hall and the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Opéra Comique in Paris and Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
He has received numerous international awards, including the Salzburg Music Förderpreis (2006), Prix Takefu (2007), Siemens Förderpreis (2009), the UNESCO Picasso–Miró Medal at the International Rostrum of Composers (2011), the Abbiati Award (2015), Les Grands Prix Internationaux du Disque (2016) for his album Forse, an award from the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation (2018), the SWR Orchesterpreis at the Donaueschinger Musiktage (2021) for his oratorio The Red Death, and the Grand Prix Antoine Livio (2025).
Filidei has held numerous residencies, including at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (2005), Casa de Velázquez (2006–2007), Villa Medici (2012–2013), and as a DAAD fellow in Berlin (2015). He has also served as composer-in-residence for several ensembles and festivals.
Alongside his compositional activity, he is active as a teacher and has taught composition at institutions and programs such as Royaumont’s Voix Nouvelles, the University of Iowa, Takefu International Music Festival, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and at conservatories and universities worldwide, including IRCAM, CNSMDP, ESMUC, Musikene, the Conservatories of Strasbourg and Moscow, UdK Berlin, and universities in Hannover, Stuttgart, Graz, San Diego, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
In 2016 he was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2017, an international survey conducted by Classic Voice listed him among the ten most interesting composers on the international scene. Since 2018, Filidei has served as music consultant to the I Teatri Foundation of Reggio Emilia and as Artistic Director of the Controtempo contemporary music festival at Villa Medici in Rome. In 2022, he was appointed composer-in-residence at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa for a three-year term. His works have been published by Casa Ricordi since 2018; earlier works are published by RaiCom.
Photo: © Ricordi / Harald Hoffmann