Luciano Berio was born in 1925, at Oneglia, on the Italian Riviera. His father, an organist, gave him his first music lessons. He later studied with Ghedini, Giulini and Dallapiccola. He is internationally renowned as a composer, conductor, and teacher. He has taught, among others, at Darmstadt, at Harvard, and at the Juilliard School of Music (from 1965 to 1971) where he founded the Juilliard Ensemble. In 1953, he founded Milan’s Studio di Fonologia, the journal Incontri musicali, and organized, under the same name, a series of contemporay music concerts which lasted four years. He has received numerous awards, as the Prix de la Fondation européenne de la culture, the Sibelius Prize, and the Italia Award in 1966 and 1975. From 1973 to 1980, he was director of the electro-accoustic department of IRCAM. From 1975 to 1977, he was Artistic Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and of the Accademia Filarmonica Romana.