My compositional work critically engages with the roles of time, interpretation, and causality within the act of composition. My scores often reject conventional structure in favor of graphic notation, verbal instructions, drones, isolated gestures, and repetitive "dots", all serving as a framework for organic evolution rather than strict execution. Through the use of extremely reduced material, “fragile” and unstable techniques and often very quiet dynamics the compositional forms unfold gradually, emphasizing process over precision. 

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Central to my approach is the active agency of the performer. Rather than dictating fixed timings or rhythmic structures, I like to create open systems where the ensemble shapes the pacing and form of each piece in real time. The interaction between the ensemble members is essential: the musicians control timings and the flow of the piece. This way, each performance becomes a unique realization, subtly different from the last. I am more interested in highlighting the performer as an interpreter in my pieces rather than the compositional process.

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Samuele Giulio Ferrari (b. 2001, Milan) is an Italian composer currently based in Salzburg, Austria. Exposed from an early age to diverse musical approaches, he began composing in the formative stages of his musical education. He studied violin and viola under musicians from the Scala Orchestra Milan and the Munich Philharmonic. In 2021 he began his formal composition studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg with Christian Ofenbauer, with additional important impulses coming from Marco Döttlinger, Achim Bornhöft and Laure M. Hiendl.

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His music has been performed at different venues and festivals, including Limina Festival (Salzburg), Musikforum Viktring-Klagenfurt, ISCM Avant-Garde 100 (Vilnius), “Neue Musik in St. Ruprecht” (Vienna), and EXPAN (Spittal an der Drau). He has collaborated with a range of esteemed ensembles such as NAMES, Ensemble Wiener Collage, Twenty Fingers Duo, OENM, Duo Strings&Noise, Duo Ovocutters, and the vocal ensemble Cantando Admont.

In 2024, his work "Ten Is Heaven" received the Gustav Mahler Prize from Musikforum Viktring, with its performance by Cantando Admont broadcast by Austrian radio ORF.

 

Alongside fellow colleagues Nicolas Speda and Tibor Victor Hugo Kovacs, he founded a collective for electroacoustic improvisation called “Bean$ Collective” which celebrated its debut in June 2025 with “Drone Day Salzburg” a 7-hour improvisational performance focused on the genre of Drone Music. Here, Samuele improvises on an 8-string electric guitar with an array of analog FX pedals and live electronics.