Aureliano Cattaneo was born in Codogno (Lodi, Italy) in 1974. He studied piano with Vincenzo Balzani and composition with Carlo Alessandro Landini, Pippo Molino, and Sonia Bo at the Conservatories of Piacenza and Milan. He has also taken master classes in composition with Gérard Grisey and Mauricio Sotelo. He has written many chamber music pieces and works for orchestra; after a first dramatic work based on a text by Edoardo Sanguineti titled Minotaurus, Dreaming for soprano, counter tenor, and ensemble (2002), he and Sanguineti collaborated on a chamber opera entitled La philosophie dans le labyrinthe, which premiered in 2006 at the Munich Biennale. Cattaneo is also a co-founder of the ContemporaneaMente festival in Lodi.

Cattaneo has received many commissions, including from Klangforum Wien, the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Munich Biennale, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Radio France’s Festival Présences, the Festival Musica in Strasbourg, the French and Spanish Ministries of Culture, Netzzeit, the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, the Berlin MärzMusik festival, the Berlin Akademie der Künste, Ensemble Musikfabrik, and Ensemble Contrechamps.

His pieces have been played in venues and festivals such as the Venice Biennale, the Munich Biennale, Warsaw Autumn, the Berlin Kontzerthaus, Musica Viva in Munich, the Gaudeamus Musiekweek in Amsterdam, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the Musica de Strasbourg festival, the Milano Musica festival, the Wien Modern festival in Vienna, the Salzburg Biennale, the Donaueschingen Festival, the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid, and Festival Présences in Paris.

His work has been performed by the SWR Sinfonieorchester of Baden-Baden and Friburg, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Quatuor Diotima, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Trio Accanto, the Ensemble Contrechamps, 2e2m, the Schola Heidelberg, Chorwerk Ruhr, Percussions de Strasbourg, the Mosaik ensemble, Trio Arbos, the Ensemble Divertimento and the Espai Sonor Ensemble.

Aureliano Cattaneo lives in Spain, and since 2010, has taught at ESMUC (Escuela Superior de Musica de Catalogne) in Barcelona. His works are published by Editions Suvini Zerboni in Milan.

• 2001: First prize in the 4th Manuel Valcárcel International Piano Composition Competition (Botín de Santander Foundation) for Klangregie, selected for the 14th Boswil International International Composition Symposium (Switzerland)
• 2003: Selected by the Comite de Lecture of the IRCAM/Ensemble InterContemporain
• 2004: finalist in the “Gaudeamus Music Week” (Amsterdam)
• 2005: fellowship from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.
• 2006-2007: composer-in-residence with the 2e2m ensemble
• 2013: Musikpreis Salzburg