Biography
Matias Cassano
Born in Buenos Aires, he began composing music as a self-taught while finishing his high school studies with focus on computer science in Mar del Plata.
There he took some private violin lessons with Guillermo Sotelo and together with a couple of members of the municipal symphony orchestra, they began to shape what became the ‘Amadeus’ children's and youth orchestra in 2002.
Then he moved to La Plata to study composition at the National University of La Plata with Mariano Etkin. He continued and completed his studies in Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Quilmes with Juan Peltzer and Marcos Franciosi.
He had previously studied harmony and counterpoint with Santiago Santero. He also took private violin lessons with Alexander Iakovlev and piano lessons with Olga Pouganova.
He founded a youth school orchestra (Orquesta Escuela de La Plata) and was its conductor, violin teacher and musical arranger for 8 years. During that time, he also took private lessons in orchestral conducting with Bernardo Teruggi.
In 2018, he moved to Cologne, Germany, where he studied a Master's degree in Instrumental Composition at HfTM-Köln with Brigitta Muntendorf. He has also taken master classes with Oliver Schneller, Carola Bauckholt and Georg Friedrich Haas. His works have been premiered by various instrumentalists and ensembles, including Ensemble Musikfabrik, Kommas Ensemble, Ensemble Vortex, Thibaut Surugue, Odelya Trio, etc.
In addition to academic music, he has also composed music for film and theater.
His compositions are based from acoustic instruments to the use of physical synthesizers as well as the manipulation of sounds through software.
He has also been working for some time on a project that could be called "avant-garde popular music".
He is also interested in programming in relation to Music (Pure Data, Max MSP, Arduino), as well as in the use of analogue synthesizers and the assembly of electronic devices (DIY).