Thursday, February 23, 2023
7:30 pm EST
WPAC Concert Hall
$20 general, $15 senior/FIU faculty, staff, & alumni, $5 student
2023 MIGF Festival Pass
is available to attend all festival events at a single reduced price: $100 general, $70 senior/FIU faculty, staff, & alumni, $30 student
Federico Bonacossa is a composer and classical guitarist based in Miami Florida. He studied classical guitar at the Conservatorio Statale G. P. da Palestrina in Italy before moving to the U.S. in 2001.
Mr. Bonacossa spent his early teenage years playing punk music and skateboarding before suddenly falling in love with classical music after hearing a recording of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition played on a classical guitar. He studied classical guitar at the Conservatorio Statale G. P. da Palestrina in Italy before moving to the U.S. where he pursued a master’s degree at the Peabody Conservatory and a doctorate at the University of Miami in classical guitar performance and music theory. He holds an additional master’s degree in music composition from Florida International University where he studied composition and electronic music. His creative interests range from electronic and computer-assisted composition to purely acoustic and improvisational works.
His works have been performed across the US and abroad. Recent performances include a premiere by the Sinfonietta MIQ in Guanajuato, Mexico, and performances at University of Guanajuato, the Italian Cultural Center in Mexico City, and at the ISSTA Festival in Cork Ireland. Other venues where his work has recently been featured include the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in Germany, Zimmermann Cafe Chamber Music Series, Frost School of Music, Wake Up Miami! Series, Palm Beach Atlantic University Early Music Festival, Aventura Cultural Arts Center, FETA Street Fest at Art Basel, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Miami Theatre Center, Three Rivers Arts Festival (PA), Compositum Musicae Novae Artist Series, New Music Miami Festival, SEAMUS conference, SUBTROPICS Experimental Series, Slippery Rock University (PA), Miami International Guitar Festival, University of Massachusetts Amherst, The Drawing Room (NY), The Open Collective (VT), the University of Oklahoma, Peabody Conservatory (MD), and Kharkov, Ukraine. He has written numerous dance scores for Dance Now Miami, including “This Moment Here,” which was premiered at the North Miami Band Shell, and later performed at Coker University in South Carolina and the Aventura Cultural Arts Center. Hi most recent collaboration with Dance Now Miami entitled “Anusim: what is hidden is never lost” was performed at the RHI Festival in Portugal and in many other venues including the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and Miami Theater Center. He has also collaborated on several projects with GodoyPradera Creations and more recently on a video project with choreographer Maya Nadine Billig. As a performer he is involved in promoting new music for guitar and especially works that feature electronics and alternative tunings. He is co-founder of The Last Hundred Ensemble, an ensemble dedicated to music written in the last one hundred years. The group recently released its first album, featuring his work Omaggio a Marinetti, an eclectic composition for soprano, harp, electric guitar, and percussion (including balloons), based on futurist poems. Additional recent releases include Tre Creature for solo guitar, and the dance score from Anusim.
Federico Bonacossa is currently Associate Teaching Professor of Music Theory and Musicology at Florida International University.
