Composer, violinist and conductor, Michael Galasso was born in Louisiana in 1949. An exponent of avant-garde to New York since the early 1970s, in 1995 he chose Europe-Florence, Venice, and Paris-where he now lives and works. A soloist to 11 years, a composer of theater, film, dance and sound installations, he is a violin virtuoso who experiments from more than 30 years with melodic and rhythmic syntheses in which affinities with European baroque music are interwoven with Cajun, zydeco, r'n'b, jazz and rock influences, and with the traditions of the Middle East and Central Asia.Michael Galasso began by composing the original music for some of Robert Wilson's early works, including to Letter for Queen Victoria (1974, world premiere to Spoleto). Also with Wilson, he wrote the soundtracks for Ibsen's Donna del Mare (1998, Ferrara), Strindberg's The Dream (1998, Stockholm, London, New York, Paris), Chekhov's Three Sisters (2001, Stockholm), of Doktor Caligari (2002, Berlin), of Les Fables de La Fontaine for the Comédie-Française (2004-2008, Paris), 2 Lips and Dancers in Space, (2004, Holland, Belgium, and Hong-Kong), Ibsen's Peer Gynt (2005, Oslo), as well as Heiner Müller's Quartett , with Isabelle Huppert (2006/2007, Paris).For film, his soundtracks include such films as Hong Kong Express and the extraordinary In the Mood for Love, by Wong Kar-Wai.He has composed soundtracks for French films including Le Tango des Rachewsky, Brodeuses, Histoire d'un Secret, Séraphine, as well as the original music for Iranian and Turkish films.His sound and music installations include the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2000 and the Guggenheim in Bilbao in 2001 for the Giorgio Armani retrospective (and subsequent stops of the exhibition to Berlin, London, Rome, Tokyo, Shanghai, Milan). In 1998 he directed Fabrica Musica to Treviso. He has composed music for choreographers Karole Armitage, Andy DeGroat, and Lucinda Childs. His second album for ECM Records, High Lines, was released in March 2005.He has given solo violin concerts to New York, Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Zurich. to Spoleto, on July 1, Michael Galasso will play solo pieces from his musical compositions from 1973 to 2000.