b i o g r a p h y

Manuel Zurria was born in Catania in 1962. Since 1980 he has been  living in Rome. He has worked  with some of the most important Italian composers such as Francesco Pennisi,  Sylvano Bussotti,  Aldo Clementi, Adriano Guarnieri, Franco Donatoni, Fabio Vacchi and Luca Francesconi. Particularly significant his long term collaboration with Salvatore Sciarrino and Alvin Lucier. Zurria recently had the chance to collaborate with Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Gavin Bryars, Giya Kancheli, Kaija Saariaho, György Kurtág, Louis Andriessen, Sofia Gubajdulina, Peter Eötvös, and Frederic Rzewski. He inspired a whole generation of composers from all over the world to write new works for flute: Yan Maresz, Alvin Lucier, James Saunders, Bernhard Lang, Toshio Hosokawa, Laurence Crane, Ricardas Kabelis, Emanuele Casale, Noah Creshevsky, Giuliano D’Angiolini, Matthew  Shlomowitz, PhilipCorner, Fausto Romitelli, Mary Jane Leach, Jacob TV, Luca Francesconi, Fabrizio De Rossi Re, Maurizio Pisati, Howard Skempton, Nicola Sani, Gabriele Manca, Lucia Ronchetti, Agostino Di Scipio, Alvin Curran, Claude Lenners, Yoshihisa Taira, Mario Pagliarani, Luigi Ceccarelli, James Dashow, Emiliano Turazzi, Rytis Mazulis, Mario Garuti, Juste Janulyte, Stefano Scodanibbio and Salvatore Sciarrino have written for him and/or dedicated their works. Strongly attracted by minimalism, he conceived a unique project started in 2007 with REPEAT! (3 cd Die Schachtel), followed by Loops4ever (2 cd Mazagran - 2011), that will find its ending with Again&Again (ANTS Records 2 cd, scheduled  for 2020). This  triptych covers  50 years of history of minimal music with a myriad of pieces, original or arranged with the authors themselves. Zurria performed  concerts all around the world at International Festivals such as: Venice Music Biennale, Pacific Music Festival (Sapporo-Japan), Musica (Strasbourg), Beethovenhalle (Bonn), Settembre Musica (Torino), De Yjsbreker (Amsterdam), IRCAM - Festival Agorà (Paris), Rachmaninov Hall (Moscow), Temporada (Buenos Aires), Festival d'Automne (Paris), Rikskonserter (Stockholm), Illikhom Theatre (Tashkent-Uzbekistan), Takefu Festival (Japan), Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Maerz Musik (Berlin), The Warehouse (London), Festival Archipel (Geneve), NUMUS (Aarhus), Orpheus Foundation (Gent), Auditori (Barcelona), Musica Nova (Helsinki), ULTIMA (Oslo), Ensem (Valencia), Wien Modern, Jauna Muzika (Vilnius), MusikHaus (Wien), Berliner Philarmonie (Berlin), Teatro alla Scala/Musica per la Resistenza (Milano), Orestiadi di Gibellina, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Rassegna Nuova Musica (Macerata), New Directions (Lulea-Sweden), Bartòk Festival (Szombathely-Hungary), Philarmonie (Luxembourg), Centro Cultural São Paulo (Brazil), Ukho Music (Kiev), Tectonics Festival (Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens Greece), Auditorium Stelio Molo RSI (Lugano, Switzerland). In 1990 he was one of the founders of Alter Ego, a leading group in Italy for contemporary music. He released  almost 40 CDs and vinyls with  BMG Ariola, Ricordi, Capstone Records, EdiPan, Stradivarius, Die Schachtel, Mazagran, Mode Records, Megadisc, God Records, Atopos, Touch UK, Another Timbre UK, Modern Love.