Marco Galvani is an award-winning composer of choral, concert, and electronic music, based in London. His music has been described by Robert Hugill as ‘21st Century, yet timeless’, and has been commissioned by a variety of ensembles, choirs, and foundations, such as The Sixteen, Royal Philharmonic Society, Southern Cathedrals Festival, Classic FM, Borough New Music, and Creative Scotland.
He was the inaugural winner of the Schellhorn Prize for Composition, a finalist in the NCEM Young Composers competition in 2017, and one of seven young composers selected by the Royal Philharmonic Society and Classic FM to write a work in celebration of Classic FM’s 25th anniversary. This resulted in two commissions from The Sixteen, On Christmas Morn, and Stella Caeli, the latter of which involved mentorship from Sir James MacMillan.
His recent work explores the connection between music and technology, with his critically acclaimed album collaboration with SANSARA, Invisible Cities, creating a synthesis of choral and electronic music, as well as projects such as his most recent opera Helena and virtual reality collaboration Play the Stars, investigating the relationship between analog and digital through music.
In 2021 Marco signed with Birdsong Music Publishing, and any enquiries should be sent to megan.ohanlon@birdsong-music.com
REVIEWS
‘Galvani’s music touches at a very immediate level, an assertion that only in community do with survive and thrive’
- Choir and Organ Magazine 2021
‘Galvani manages to create music which is very 21st century yet timeless, and in his polyphonic textures is not frightened of sharp corners’
- Robert Hugill
‘Sansara’s two associate composers, Marco Galvani and Oliver Tarney, sit comfortably alongside the masters of the past with their creative invention’
- Choir and Organ Magazine 2018
‘Spectacular new pieces from Oliver Tarney, Marco Galvani, and Malcolm Archer on a journey from darkness into light’
- The Guardian, SANSARA ‘Cloths of Heaven’ review
‘Lambe’s Stella caeli is paired with an impassioned setting by Marco Galvani (b1994)’
-Gramophone, review of The Sixteen’s album ‘Star of Heaven: Legacy of the Eton Choirbook’
‘Marco Galvani’s response to Lambe’s Stella Caeli has a certain harmonic austerity that works well with the text, a prayer from deliverance from plague’
-Limelight Magazine Australia
‘This is a short, exciting opera, perfect for 21st Century attention spans’
- Jeremy Dennis, Oxford Daily Info, reviewing Autopilot Saves Model S
‘Those who fear for the current direction of contemporary opera might be reassured by Rothschild’s Violin. Galvani’s harmonic language is modernist, to be sure, but with an acute ear for sonority that puts one in mind, perhaps, of a figure such as George Benjamin. The austere sound-world of the work’s opening gives way to a string chorale of mesmerising beauty as Yakov’s redemption builds momentum. And the percussive and sustained timbres of piano and gongs play a major part in creating the opera’s distinctive atmosphere.’
‘Galvani’s Rothschild’s Violin is more than a worthwhile candidate for further exploration, and urgent notice of a compositional voice of genuine promise.’
- David Threasher, Oxford Culture Review
Invisible cities
Invisible Cities is an album of my music, released in 2021 on Resonus Classics. This album was inspired by Italo Calvino’s seminal work, and reflects on the connections between us in both a physical and psychological sense.
Choir & Organ:
“Galvani’s music touches at a very immediate level”
“The choir brilliantly communicates the humanity of the music”
Have a listen to ‘Ubi Caritas’ from the album, at the link above.