Biography

For Mexican-Italian, Alfredo Caponnetto, ‘music is my life’.

Alfredo came to Edinburgh University a year and a half ago after studying composition in Italy. Building on his Italian studies in contemporary music, he has developed an exciting synthesis of his highly-approachable tonal style and a more experimental music. His mentors at Edinburgh University say of him that his work shows the emergence of a true and distinctive compositional talent.

Alfredo is now pursuing a PhD in composition at Edinburgh University. Music commissions to emerging composers are now very rare, and a PhD is becoming the established route for composers to gain experience in their art. The focus of Alfredo’s PhD will be to create links between the Renaissance counterpoint tradition and contemporary music. He writes, “I strongly believe that the combination of the clear lines of Renaissance counterpoint with the exceptionally broad writing techniques found in contemporary music could help develop the inventive language of music in the 21st century.”

How the Award Helped

The Dewar Arts Award will support Alfredo for the three years of his PhD.

Since the Award

In November 2012, Alfredo was awarded the degree of PhD in Music Composition from Edinburgh University. During his PhD years, Alfredo co-founded both the Edinburgh Contemporary Music Ensemble, for the promotion of contemporary music, and Europe Edition Ltd., a publisher of new works by contemporary composers. He also set up a relationship between the Santa Cecilia Conservatoire in Rome and the historically-significant St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh. His PhD supervisor says his submission is of the very highest quality which has more than fulfilled his early promise. Alfredo writes that the Dewar Arts Award allowed him to take a huge leap forward in his musical career.