About

Marta Gentilucci studied Vocal Arts as a soprano at Conservatory “F. Morlacchi” in Perugia. There, she also obtained her Master of Arts in English and German Literature with cum laude honours. She completed her Master Degree in composition and in composition/computer music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart (DE) under the guidance of Marco Stroppa. She was selected for the two-years program in computer music at IRCAM (Cursus 1 and Cursus 2). She holds a Ph.D. in composition from Harvard University, mentored by Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku.

In September 2022, she joined the Faculty of Music at the University of Cambridge as an assistant professor in composition and the Girton College as an Official Fellow in music. She teaches composition and electronic music composition.    

She was in residence at the Experimentalstudio des SWR Freiburg, at the electronic studio of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (DE) and at IRCAM. In 2017, she was selected for the Artistic Research Residency at IRCAM with a project on voice and extended vocal techniques. Her electronic music was selected for SICMF (Seoul International Computer Music Festival), nycemf (New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2013, 2015, 2019), and several editions of the ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) where she has been awarded “Best Paper” (2018) and “Best Piece – Regional, Europe” (2019). In 2018-19, she was Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow (US).

She was resident as a fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies (2018-19) and at the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici (2021-22).

Her music has been internationally performed by ensembles as the Wind-Soloist of the Orchestra Nazionale RAI, Ensemble Surplus, Ensemble Ascolta, cros.art ensemble, soloists of Ensemble Intercontemporain, Les Cris de Paris, Jack Quartet, Chiara Quartet, L’Arsenale Ensemble, Hand Werk Ensemble, Nikel Ensemble, Elision Ensemble, Promenade Sauvage, Dal Niente, Contrechamps, Ensemble The Chatter, Orchestra and Choir of the National Theater Darmstadt, Ensemble Interface, Ensemble Vertixe Sonora and Neue Vocalsolisten and ensemble Atmusica. Some of her works have been performed at prestigious festival such as the 59^th edition of the Nuova Consonanza Festival (IT), Manifeste Festival (FR), ECLAT (DE), Festival Electrocution (FR), Biennale di Venezia (IT), and Ultrashall Berlin (DE). Her music has also been included in the music season of Parco Della Musica di Roma (IT) and Philarmonie de Paris.

Among her most recent activities, in 2020 she was commissioned by IRCAM and Neue Vocalsolisten two new pieces for voice and Live-electronics, both premiered during the MANIFESTE Festival (Paris, 2020) and performed at the ECLAT Festival (Stuttgart) 2021. In 2021, the Venice Biennale commissioned and premiered moving still – processional crossings, a fifty-minute piece for a vocal ensemble and reciting voices. The piece was performed in 2021 at L’Arsenale in Venice and in 2022 at the Philarmonie de Paris. 

In 2022, Villa Medicis and Les Rencontres de la Photographie de Arles (FR), supported the production and premiere of cartographies du corps (2021-22), a sound-visual installation created in collaboration with the photographer Susan Meiselas. Gentilucci’s most recent work, Passages, a forty-five-minute piece for soprano, reciting voice, ensemble and electronics was commissioned by the French State and ensemble Atmusica. It was premiered in May 2023 in France by the Atmusica Ensemble.

Some of her new works include flutters études (2023) for solo recorder, commissioned by and premiered at the Brugge National Theater (Concertgebouw Brugge, Belgium); a walk (2024) for soprano and piano, commissioned by and premiered at the Bad Kissingen Sommer Festival; re//patterning (2024) for percussion solo and electronic, commissioned by and premiered at the MA/IN festival by Fabio Macchia.

Her formal training as an opera singer influenced and formed her being a composer, as well as her attraction to the inner structure of sound, its way of resonating in space and oscillating within a timespan, its metamorphosis in color and ‘shape’. She is particularly interested in vocal music and technology, and the different possibilities of building acoustic and virtual spaces. Her deep artistic necessity is to create a musical space where music and sounds are perceived not only as an intellectual construct, but also as a physical sensation.