Michelino Bisceglia

Award-winning composer, conductor, and pianist Michelino Bisceglia was born in Genk, Belgium on January 4, 1970 to a family of Italian origin. He started to play the keyboard at the age of six. When he was 12-years-old, he began to train formally on classical piano, and after a few years he switched to modern piano. By his second year in high school, Michelino knew that he wanted to dedicate his life to music and embarked on an intense daily practice regimen to reach his goal. Early on in his musical development, he was influenced by jazz musicians Bill Evans, Lennie Tristano, and Keith Jarrett. He was also inspired by the works of Mozart, Rachmaninov, and Stravinsky, which strongly influenced his compositional and orchestral instincts. After a few years of extensive self-study, he began to work as a pianist, composer, arranger, and conductor. In 2014, Michelino Bisceglia won the World Soundtrack, Public Choice Award for the score of "Marina", a film by veteran Belgian director Stijn Coninx. Based on the childhood memories of singer, songwriter, and accordionist Rocco Granata, "Marina" has also won national and international awards and screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Other composers nominated in the 2014 World Soundtrack, Public Choice Award category were: Howard Shore ("The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug") Johann Johannsson ("Prisoners"), Robin Foster ("Metro Manila"), and Liam Bates ("Last Passenger"). Winners of the 2014 World Soundtrack Awards include Alexandre Desplat, Pharrell Williams, Daniel Pemberton, and Francis Lai. Michelino has composed the soundtracks for multiple feature films, working with such renowned orchestras as the Brussels Philharmonic and Limburgs Symfonisch Orkest. He was also the orchestrator, arranger, and conductor of the 3D-animation TV series "Symfollies", which created 52 episodes that were broadcast worldwide. The success of this project resulted in a number of live shows with orchestra. For these shows, Michelino worked with several international orchestras, such as The Royal Flemish Philharmonic, The Japan Synfonia Orchestra, and Orquestra Nacional do Porto. As a producer, Michelino has worked on more than 60 full album recordings. He has composed and arranged over 450 orchestrated works for symphonic orchestra, big bands, choirs, and string quartets. In 2004, he formed his own symphonic orchestra Prova Symfonica. As a musician in his own right, Michelino was nominated twice, in 1997and again in 1999, for a Zamu Music Award, Belgium's highest musical award, for best jazz musician of the year.The Michelino Bisceglia Trio, performing original jazz compositions, has recorded only five albums, but they have played worldwide at jazz festivals such as the Rochester International Jazz Festival (USA), Jarasum International Jazz Festival (South Korea), Hong Kong International Jazz Festival (HK) the Guimaraes Jazz Festival (Portugal) with Dewey Redman Quartet, Ulverston Music Festival in the UK, and the Gent Jazz Festival (Belgium). As a musical collaborator, a typical characteristic of Michelino is working with artists outside the jazz world. His most notable co-production in this regard was released with Belgium's DJ Buscemi on Blue Note Records. In 2015, he will arrange the new acoustic album of Belgian heavy metal band Channel Zero.