Ivo Antognini was born in 1963 in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland. Having gained a degree in piano from Lucerne in 1985, he studied at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern with pianist Joe Haider. Early in his career he composed music for television and film, as well as jazz works. In 2006 he met the world-class children’s choir Coro Calicantus and its director Mario Fontana. Since then he has devoted his creative efforts largely to the composition of choral works, several of which have won international awards. In 2016 a concert dedicated entirely to his choral music was held in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, and his first major extended work—A prayer for Mother Earth, for choir, orchestra, soprano soloist and piano—was premiered in Carnegie Hall. He regularly serves as a jury member in international choral and composition competitions, and has presented his music in Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, the United States and Japan. He teaches ear training and piano at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, and lives in the village of Aranno with his wife and his two children

from notes by Paul Conway © 2023