Emanuela Ballio (b. 1968 in Milan) started studying the piano at a very early age and classical dance at the La Scala theatre in Milan. At the age of 22 she graduated in composition with top marks from G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan under the guidance of U. Rotondi. She studied electronic music with A. Vidolin and film music with E. Morricone and was awarded an advanced diploma in composition with F. Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, after which she soon became a teacher of Composition. She is currently on the teaching staff at the Conservatory Luca Marenzio of Brescia.

Emanuela Ballio’s approach to composing is characterised by an intellectual curiosity and versatility that has led her to write not only for orchestra, choir and solo instruments, but also for unusual chamber groups, such as accordion quartet and recorder ensemble. She has obtained many honours both in national and international competitions, like International Competition Viotti – Valsesia (Vercelli), 3rd International Competition Fanny Mendelssohn (Unna, Germany), Guido D’Arezzo (Arezzo), GEDOK: 10th International Composers Competition for Symphony Orchestra (Mannheim), International Competition for Composers of Chamber Music (Winterthur), Premio Valentino Bucchi (Rome), International Competition Paolo Barsacchi (Viareggio), IBLA Grand Prize 2000 (New York), Manuel Valcarcel (Santander), 3rd BIBF Composition Competition (Great Britain), 3rd International Composition Competition for Organ of Barberia (Cesena), Longfellow Chorus International Composers’ Competition (Portland, Maine, USA). Her compositions have been played in concerts and festival of many important cities like Kiev, Odessa, Tallin, Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Buenos Aires, Santander, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Corfu, Basel, Paris, London, York, Munich, Malta, Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Milan, Rome, Venice, Siena, Novara, Trieste, Como, Brescia, Bologna, Perugia, Bari, Fiuggi, Forli, Cesenatico.

She has been a jury’s member of some International Competitions of Compositions and Chamber Music. She’s the Artistic Director of the International Harp Composers and Performers Competition Giuliana Albisetti.

Penombra nel confessionale, for violin

Sonorous gestures, musical ideas, oxymorons that consume their existences in a very limited time – in which development seems feeble in favour of not preconstituted synthetic figures – where everything happens but everything is hidden, like a twilight in the confessional.