Teo Usuelli(1920-2009)
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
He completed his studies in Milan. After having received his diploma in
Humanities, he attended the Faculty of Pure Mathematics at the State
University for four years with good results. He specialized in music
and choir song in 1944, and graduated in Composition from the
Conservatory "G. Verdi" of Milan in 1945. After having fought as a
partisan from 1941 to 1945, he studied in depth vocal polyphony in
1947. In the immediate postwar period, he started his musical career as
a director of vocal polyphonic groups for various concerts and radio
programs of polyphonic music, paying particular attention to the
Italians of the XVI and XVII centuries. He moved to Rome in the late
forties, and has been extremely busy writing music for cinema and for
television. In the field of folk music he studied Italian regional
groups, and his transcriptions, from the laudi of the 1200s to the
songs of the mountain, belong to the repertory of numerous choirs.
Among the most famous are Montagnes Valdotaines and Belle rose du
printemps. He has also composed various songs, such as Meravigliose
labbra and La canzone del faro, which were quite successful. He taught
"Harmony and Counterpoint" in the conservatories of Piacenza, Bologna
and L'Aquila; he retired from teaching in 1986. He created for RAI 3 TV
a series of 6 episodes, each dedicated to a major contemporary Italian
composer, called "Che musica è". He participated in it as Conductor,
taking part in debates with the public and presenting various music
performed by "Spettro sonoro". At present, he is working on music with
computers, programming computers and composing "digital music". He
collaborates with the C.R.M. (Center for Music Research) of Rome,
creating software for the projects "FLY10" and "FLY30". Among his
compositions in this genre we mention Mooning for soprano and c64,
Sinite for Fly10 and soprano, and Nomina for Fly30 and soprano.
Furthermore, his main compositions include music for theater, for
orchestra, chamber music, film music (for films directed by Marco
Ferreri and other renowned directors) and music for TV.