Domenico De Simone
Composer · Professor of Electroacoustic Composition
"A lakeside soundscape from the composer's hometown, a fragile acoustic habitat, reimagined rather than preserved."
Domenico De Simone is an Italian composer and Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the "Umberto Giordano" Conservatory of Music in Foggia. He graduated in composition, electronic music, piano and jazz. He then completed the advanced composition course at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Azio Corghi. He also took the second-level degree in electronic music at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory under Giorgio Nottoli, with the highest marks and honors.
At the Accademia Chigiana in Siena he received a diploma of merit in film music from Ennio Morricone and a diploma of merit in composition from Franco Donatoni. He was awarded by the S.I.A.E. in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
His compositions have been performed in more than one hundred concerts in Italy and abroad. The countries include China, Latvia, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Romania, Malta, the USA, Ireland, the UK, Spain, Austria, Brazil, Taiwan, France, Ecuador, Australia, Poland, Germany, South Korea, Portugal, Peru, Thailand, Switzerland, Ukraine, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Japan and Finland. His music has also been broadcast by RAI Radio 3.
Highlights
Phantomnesis selected artist, Cambiata Arts; featured in the compilation Phantomnesis: Sites, Streets & Sacred Spaces
Professor of Electroacoustic Composition, "Umberto Giordano" Conservatory, Foggia
Diplomas of merit from the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, in film music (Ennio Morricone) and composition (Franco Donatoni)
Awarded by the S.I.A.E. in 1995, 1996 and 1997
Special mention, Pasolini Composition Competition (2022)
Mention, 9th "Città di Albenga" Composition Competition (2022)
Works selected for ICMC 2022 and 2023, NYCEMF 2021, 2023 and 2024, and the International Csound Conference 2022
More than one hundred concerts in Italy and abroad, and broadcasts on RAI Radio 3
Selected performances
NYCEMF 2021, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival — New York University, New York, USA (2021)
World Listening Day 2021: The Unquiet Earth — NAISA Radio, Toronto, Canada (2021)
Audio Mostly 2021 — Università di Trento, Italy (2021)
Festival SpazioMusica, 40th edition: "Oltre il Senso" — Cagliari, Italy (2021)
Earth Day Art Model Festival — Indiana University, Indianapolis, USA (2022, 2023)
Saxornadas, VII Festival de Música e das Artes do CSMVIGO — Conservatorio Superior de Música, Vigo, Spain (2022)
NoiseFloor — Staffordshire University, UK (2022, 2023)
ICMC 2022, International Computer Music Conference — University of Limerick, Ireland (2022)
Audio Mostly 2022 — St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, Austria (2022)
IRCAM Forum @ NYU — New York University, New York, USA (2022)
The Strange Order of Things — Arte Estranha, Brazil (2022)
ICSC 2022, 6th International Csound Conference — Technological University of the Shannon Midlands, Athlone, Ireland (2022)
WOCMAT, International Conference — Taiwan (2022; 2023 with TCMA and Kainan University, Taipei)
Special mention, Pasolini Composition Competition — Italy (2022)
Mention, 9th "Città di Albenga" Composition Competition — Italy (2022)
"Il Volo di Pegaso", 15th edition — literary, artistic and musical competition, Italy (2023)
Audioblast Festival #11 — APO33, France (2023)
State University of Paraná (UNESPAR) — School of Music and Fine Arts, Curitiba, Brazil (2023)
2nd Concert Season, Orchestra ICO Suoni del Sud — Foggia, Italy (2023)
VIII Festival de Música Electroacústica UC — Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (IMUC), Chile (2023)
NYCEMF 2023 and 2024 — New York University, New York, USA (2023, 2024)
Everyday is Spatial 2023 — University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK (2023)
VU 2023! World On a Wire — Park City, Utah, USA (2023)
Ears Have Eyes, Episode 18: Sound Death — Calgary/Mohkinstsis, Canada (2023)
Música Electrónica y Visual — Sala Isidora Zegers, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile (2023)
La Hora Acusmática — virtual concert series, Argentina (2023)
Sound & Radio Works 2023, Radiophrenia — Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland (2023)
Sonic Saturday Artists' meeting — Anton Bruckner University with Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (2023)
Paysages | Composés — Grenoble, France (2023)
Atemporánea 2023 — Conservatorio "Astor Piazzolla", Buenos Aires, Argentina (2023)
42nd Festival SpazioMusica: Echoic Memory — Cagliari, Italy (2023)
MUSLAB, International Electroacoustic Music Exhibition — MAAC, Guayaquil, Ecuador (2023)
Australasian Computer Music Conference 2023 — University of New England, Sydney, Australia (2023)
ICMC 2023 — Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China (2023)
Futuristic Nostalgia — Momentum Gallery, Krakow, Poland (2023)
SiMN 2023, 6th International Symposium on New Music — Universidade Estadual do Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil (2023)
Espaces Multiples #7, La Semaine du Son (UNESCO), with inDREAM — Grenoble, France (2024)
Web Audio Conference (WAC) '24 — Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA (2024)
XXVI New Music Miami ISCM Festival — Florida International University, Miami, USA (2024)
Sonorities Festival Belfast — Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Belfast, UK (2024)
London Contemporary Art Fair, 12th edition — Elements Contemporary Art Space, London, UK (2024)
ICAD 2024, 29th International Conference on Auditory Display — EMPAC Theatre, Troy, New York, USA (2024)
HYPNOS
Phantomnesis selected work
"A lakeside soundscape from the composer's hometown, a fragile acoustic habitat, reimagined rather than preserved."
Domenico De Simone is one of the composers selected for Phantomnesis, an international call from Cambiata Arts for contemporary music, experimental composition and heritage-rooted works. His piece HYPNOS is included in the compilation Phantomnesis: Sites, Streets & Sacred Spaces. The call sought pieces that explore the forgotten, the near-forgotten and the reimagined. It welcomed works that bring neglected musical systems, regional practices, extinct gestures or overlooked aesthetic pathways into today's listening.
An international jury of six professional composers, performers and researchers reviewed each submission. Their own careers embody the premise of the call. Each has spent years bringing overlooked musical systems, regional practices and reimagined traditions into contemporary listening. The jurors work in Toronto, Hannover, Skopje, Bangkok and Tehran, and across Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt in Austria. Their practices range from electroacoustic composition and open-source technology to somatic voice and live electronics, traditional Thai instruments, artistic research and jazz scholarship. They considered each work for its engagement with forgotten or near-forgotten material, its compositional richness and its artistic conviction. The five works in the compilation emerged from that process, and their composers are also invited to join the Cambiata Arts roster.
De Simone placed HYPNOS in the Contemporary category because it is grounded in present-day electroacoustic practice and computer-based sound transformation. The work is realized through field recordings, Csound processing and custom C-based signal manipulation. The source material is a personal acoustic memory: recordings captured on the lakeside of the town where he was born.
The near-forgotten element the work engages is the endangered acoustic environment itself. It is the subtle soundscape of a specific place, increasingly altered by ecological and social change. Rather than preserving it as a static archive, HYPNOS reimagines the soundscape through granular processing and temporal transformation. Familiar sonic gestures drift toward ambiguity. In this way the piece brings a fragile acoustic habitat that risks disappearing into today's listening, and it emphasizes transformation over nostalgia.
Phantomnesis: Sites, Streets & Sacred Spaces will be released on November 10th, 2026, curated and published by CambiataArt Records. Each artist retains full ownership and rights to their work.
Domenico De Simone composes at the point where recorded place meets computer-based sound transformation. His work spans electroacoustic and acousmatic composition, computer music, sound art and soundscape composition. It also covers immersive and spatial audio, audiovisual composition, and instrumental music with electronics. Field recording is his starting material. Csound synthesis and processing, and signal manipulation he writes himself, shape that material into music.
His practice is rooted in acoustic ecology, the study of how places sound and how they change. In HYPNOS, a lakeside soundscape from his hometown becomes the raw material. Granular processing and temporal transformation push familiar sounds toward ambiguity, so the piece reimagines a fragile acoustic habitat rather than preserving it as an archive. The same approach runs through works presented at the International Csound Conference, the International Computer Music Conference and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival.
He also works with spatial and immersive sound, including Ambisonics and multichannel composition, and with the image, in audiovisual composition. Live electronics connect his acousmatic work to the concert stage. His catalogue includes BI[OS] for euphonium and live electronics, written with real-time composition software he developed himself . As Professor of Electroacoustic Composition at the "Umberto Giordano" Conservatory in Foggia, he carries this research into teaching.