Since winning the prestigious VI. Salzburg International Mozart Composition Competition in 1995, Simone Fontanelli has been considered as one of the most interesting and authentic contemporary musical personalities.
As composer and conductor, he has been invited to many international Festivals in Italy, Austria, England, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Kazachistan, Israel, Taiwan and USA. He has always received the highest praise for his works: “I treasure his talent very highly…” (György Kurtág). “Fontanelli's music is poetically beautiful, touching” (Muzsika, Hungarian Music Magazine) and his interpretations as a conductor: “It is rare that one's music is prepared with such sensitivity and insight, combined with such superb technical skill” (George Crumb).
From 2003 to 2009 Mr. Fontanelli was the Director of the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music (Brunswick, ME - USA) and a member of the distinguished faculty/artist roster of the prestigious Bowdoin Summer Music Festival in Brunswick,  a position he has also held in 2008 at the Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum in Salzburg.
Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Mozarteum in Salzburg. He was both founder and conductor of the Amadeus Kammerorchester Salzburg, an acclaimed chamber orchestra devoted to the classical repertoire and whose members were some of the best Alumni of the Mozarteum.
Mr. Fontanelli was born in 1961 in Milan. He studied guitar with Notis Mavroudis and Giorgio Oltremari. He also studied Philosophy at the University of Milan. In 1989, he graduated in Composition from the Conservatorio of Milano, where he’d been a pupil of Davide Anzaghi and Umberto Rotondi. He won the first prize at the Ville de Bagneux International Competition (France 1988).
Mr. Fontanelli studied conducting in Hungary. He was the conductor of the Milano Ensemble (1985-1988), the Latina Logos Ensemble (1985-1988) and the Nuovi Spazi Sonori Ensemble (1989-1991). He was awarded the “Diploma di Merito” in Instrumental Contemporary Music at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena in 1980 and 1981.
Mr. Fontanelli gives masterclasses and lectures in Music Analysis, Chamber Music, Conducting and Composition. He has been invited to give them at many important universities in Europe, Asia and America including the Juilliard School in New York, the Lamont School in Denver, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, the F. Liszt Academy in Budapest and many others.
Web: http://www.simonefontanelli.com/ (2011)