Ivan Fedele learned to play piano with Bruno Canino at the Giuseppe Verdi conservatory in Milan, where he graduated in 1972. He then studied composition with Renato Dionisi and Azio Corghi in Milan and with Franco Donatoni in Rome. He also studied electronics with Angelo Paccagnini and philosophy at the University of Milan. Fedele won first prize in the competition of the Internationale Gaudeamus Muziekweek in Amsterdam in 1981 for Primo Quartetto and Chiari, revealing him to the international contemporary scene.

Ivan Fedele’s oeuvre is based on several essential characteristics: a constant interaction among the principles or the organization and freedom, the desire to transmit easily identifiable forms without relinquishing the sumptuousness of the musical writing, a distinguished relationship between the musician and technology. In this sense, Fedele seeks to imagine new formal strategies that ally certain narrative aspects of the classical-romantic symphonic model with innovations for writing or new electronic means of the last 50 years.

A renowned teacher, Ivan Fedele is an active teacher regularly invited by institutions such as Harvard University, the University of Barcelona, the Sorbonne, IRCAM, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Chopine Academy in Warsaw, Acanthes, the CNSM de Lyon, the conservatories in Bologne and Turin. Fedele has long taught composition at the conservatories in Strasbourg and Milan.