Oscar Bianchi

Oscar Bianchi is a Berlin-based composer of Italian and Swiss descent whose music blends rigorous structural thinking with visceral emotional power. He is also Professor of Composition at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and the founder and Artistic Director of the International Young Composers and Conductors Academy in Ticino, Switzerland. Oscar Bianchi studied composition, choral conducting, and electronic music at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, completed IRCAM’s master’s program in Paris, and earned a doctorate from Columbia University under the guidance of Tristan Murail and George Lewis. His critically acclaimed first opera, Thanks to My Eyes – created with director Joël Pommerat and premiered at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence – has toured internationally. His cantata Matra, alongside a growing body of staged, participatory, and chamber works, continues to surprise audiences and critics alike with its depth, humor, and unwavering commitment to the primacy of expression. His music has been performed by many of today’s foremost ensembles and orchestras, including the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, Ensemble Modern, JACK, and Klangforum Wien.

In Los Angeles, Oscar Bianchi will compose a new work for the U.S. ensemble Loadbang, conducting research together with ensemble members and using as a libretto his late aunt Dora’s diary from WWII. Her harrowing story of survival highlights themes of human dignity and the impacts of displacement.

Selected Works
2023 | Pozzanghere I mezzo seccate for soprano, eight instruments and electronics
2021 | 6 db – concert for six double basses
2017 | Pathos of Distance – string quartet no. 2
2011 | Thanks to My Eyes – one-act opera based on a libretto by Joël Pommerat
2007 | Matra – cantata for vocal ensemble, instrumental ensemble, trio concertante, and electronics

Selected Awards/Prizes
2023–2024 | Scholarship from the German Academy Rome, Villa Massimo
2016 | IMC International Rostrum of Composers for Partendo
2013 | German Record Critics' Award for Oscar Bianchi (Portrait CD)