Simone Fontanelli is a composer, conductor, and professor of Contemporary Instrumental Music at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also serves as the director of the Institute for New Music at the same university. Winner of the prestigious Mozart Prize in Salzburg (1995) for composition, he has been a guest at international festivals in Italy, the United States, Austria, England, Spain, Russia, Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Israel, Taiwan, and Thailand. His chamber opera “Es war einmal ein Stück Holz,” based on Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio and commissioned in 2011 by the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, achieved great success in Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Austria, and was also produced as a CD in the United Kingdom.
He has conducted masterclasses and seminars at academies and universities in Europe, Asia, and the United States, including the Juilliard School in New York, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, and many others.
From 2003 to 2009, he served as the artistic and musical director of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music in Brunswick-Maine, USA. Since 2023, he has been conducting a course on Composition for Ancient Instruments at the Chigiana Academy in Siena.