Matteo Gualandi began studying composition in 2011 with Daniele Bravi. From 2013 to 2015, he studied trumpet at the Licinio Refice Conservatory of Music. He then attended lessons in design at Sapienza University of Rome. In 2015, he joined the Geneva Haute École de Musique, where he had lessons with Pascal Dusapin, Michael Jarrell, and Luis Naón. He obtained his master’s degree in 2020, earning the Contrechamps prize for graduates who distinguished themselves throughout their program. In 2019, he attended a training course led by Isabel Mundry at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. The following year, he began a master’s in composition at the Conservatoire de Paris in Frédéric Durieux’s studio, while joining IRCAM’s Cursus program for composition and computer music.

Gualandi’s compositions are born from a deep consideration of instruments, their capabilities, the nature of sound, and its poetic implications. Several of the pieces in his catalog that focus on memory are tinted with nostalgia. He confronts this nostalgia with a compositional style sensitive to modern technology, whether through the piece’s subject, conception, or title: for instance, To know not your name (2019) for mezzo-soprano, violin, and cello and [nameless_remote_memory] (2020) for cello, electronics, and real-time video. In a piece created for Cursus, Rituale Ritorno Ricordo (Ritual Return Remembrance, 2021) for alto, video, and electronics, depending on the volume of the instrument, either white noise or tender family scenes appear on a cathode-ray tube television. Similarly for the installation Archaeology of Remembrance (2022), produced for Gaudeamus Muziekweek’s 2022 project In-Situ/City, Gualandi reconstructed the city of Utrecht through materials from archival audiovisual collections. The result is like a memory space in which intimate, familiar images of a submerged collective consciousness briefly appear.

Gualandi’s pieces have been performed at festivals such as the Venice Biennale, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, ManiFeste, and Archipel, by ensembles such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Klangforum Wien, Ukho Ensemble, and Ensemble Contrechamps. On several occasions, he has performed the electronic section of pieces by other composers with Ensemble Contrechamps. He also plays trumpet with the United Nations Orchestra, the JuniOrchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the Prometheus Chamber Orchestra, among others.