Born in 1937 in Cirié (Turin). Composer, musicologist and teacher. He received many prizes for his compositions for musical theatre. In 1993 he won the Premio Internazionale Gino Tani per le Arti dello Spettacolo. In 1990 his ballet Mazapegul won the Premio Leonid Massine, Positano 1990. The recording of another ballet c Un petit train de plaisir (bmg-Ricordi) - was named Editor's Choice 1995 at the Cannes Classical Awards'. In 1998 he was awarded the Premio Bindo Missiroli for music.
For the texts of his operas he has often collaborated with José Saramango. For the Rossini Foundation in Pesaro he has edited the critical revision of L'Italiana in Algeri, and for Casa Ricordi he has edited, among other things, Beatus vir II by Vivaldi. In 1994 he was made an academician of Santa Cecilia, as well as a teacher of composition and coordinator of the courses organized by the Arturo Toscanini Foundation in Parma. For his teaching activities he received the award Omaggio a Massimo Mila.
Azio Corghi has taught composition at the conservatories of Turin, Parma and Milan; he currently teaches postgraduate courses at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Siena).

Selected works (since 1980): Sinfonia dell'esercito di Arlecchino' for 10 winds, percussion and live electronics (1982), Mazapegul - ballet for vocal octet and solo oboe (1985), Intermedi e Canzoni for solo trombone (1986), Chiardiluna for flute and guitar (1987), Blimunda - lyric opera (1989), Chansons d'élitec for piano and voice ad libitum (1989), ...promenade... for flute, clarinet, violin and cello (1989 - also version with soprano), Il pungolo di un amore - concerto for oboe and strings (1990), Divara (Wasser und Blut') - musical drama for voices, choirs, orchestra and electronics (1993), animi motus' for string quartet and electronics (1994), Rapsodia in Re (D) for orchestra (1998), Nocturnus visus for clarinet solo (1999), Muss es sein? for string quartet (1999), ...sotto l'ombra che il bambino solleva - a poem with text by J. Saramango for speaking/singing voice and orchestra (1999), Tat'jana - lyric opera (1999), Amori incrociati for one speaking voice and orchestra, with texts from Boccaccio's Decameron (2000).

Intermedi e Canzoni is an excerpt from the incidental music to the play La Piovana by Ruzzafante. My intention was to highlight the link between the tragic and the comical, which is derived from the vitality of Ruzzafante's theatre, full of indecency and expressive power. It presents the unbridled energy of the rural world, including the use of dialect. While the music comments on the stage action and takes part in it, the noisy quarrels, the sarcasm of the servants, the ambiguous footman's love song, and the scene in which the father recognises his daughter succeed one another and get mixed up. I included in the piece an incipit of a popular song of the Renaissance period, which appears in the musical material and is subject to transformation.
Using special techniques of producing sound, the trombone often has the tendency (paradoxically) to substitute for the action. Describing the scene in a realistic or imaginary way, the performer stops playing, singing, dancing, and substituting for the actor.
Intermedi e Canzoni for solo trombone is dedicated to Michele Lomuto.

Azio Corghi