Carmine-Emanuele Cella is an internationally acclaimed composer with advanced studies in mathematics. For many years he has explored the poetic relationships between the structured world of mathematics and the chaotic world of artistic expression, using music as his medium. His music is not based on melodies, harmonies or rhythms; rather, it focuses on the writing of sound itself. Each note and musical gesture becomes part of a unified, physical sonic image that reveals the tragic story of sounds.

He studied piano, computer music, composition, mathematics and philosophy, earning a PhD in Composition from the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Bologna. In 2007 he began collaborating with IRCAM in Paris, where he worked for many years as both researcher and composer. In 2008 he received the prestigious Petrassi Composition Prize from Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Italian Republuc. During 2013–2014 he was a member of the Académie de France à Madrid (Casa de Velazquez). In 2015–2016 he was a researcher in Applied Mathematics at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris, where he worked on computational creativity. In 2016 he received the Una Vita nella Musica Giovani award at the Teatro La Fenice of Venice and was artist-in-residence at the American Academy in Rome, where he worked on his first opera, premiered in June 2017 at the Kyiv National Opera.

His desire to create contextualised music led him to define what he calls hic et nunc music (“here and now” music), a new paradigm in which every performance becomes a unique and irreproducible epiphany. This concept resulted in a collaboration with the historic French Ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg, which began in 2017 and culminated in the cycle Les espaces physiques. In this project, percussion instruments are augmented through innovative technology to create new forms of interaction among performers, instruments, composer and audience.

Since January 2019, Cella has been Professor of Music and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as Principal Investigator at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). Since 2020 he has also taught Electronic Music at the Rossini Conservatoire in Pesaro.

In 2022 he received the prestigious Traiettorie Composition Prize, awarded for “his research in the field of Artificial Intelligence applied to musical creation, augmented reality, the development of mathematical models for sound representation through deep-learning techniques, and machine-learning methods for computer-assisted orchestration.”

For the 2025–2026 academic year, the course is taught by Prof. Mattia Parisse as substitute lecturer.

Teaching Materials

Academic Year 2022–2023

All information is available at: http://www.carminecella.com/rossini.html

The general timetable for all courses (Mathematics, Music Informatics and DSP, Performance and Live Environments, Electroacoustic Composition III) is available at: http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/00_Cella_AA22_23_Conservatorio.pdf

Individual course syllabi and materials:

Mathematics

http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/Cella_AA22_23_matematica.pdf
http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/01_Matematica.zip

Music Informatics and DSP

http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/Cella_AA22_23_Informatica_musicale.pdf
http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/02_Informatica_musicale.zip

Performance and Live Environments

http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/Cella_AA22_23_Ambienti_esecutivi.pdf
http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/03_Ambienti_esecutivi.zip

Electroacoustic Composition   

http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/Cella_AA22_23_Composizione_elettroacustica.pdf
http://www.carminecella.com/rossini/2023/04_Composizione_elettroacust