About Andrea Centazzo
Born 1948. Andrea Centazzo is an American composer, percussionist, record producer and visual artist.
Andrea Centazzo (born 1948) is an Italian-born American composer, percussionist, multimedia artist and record label founder.
Music career Centazzo was born in Udine, Italy. In the 1970s he played percussion in avant-garde jazz with John Zorn, Steve Lacy, and Don Cherry, and became "a leading figure in the European avant-garde".
After 1986 he turned to video making and composed operas, film soundtracks and orchestral compositions.
Centazzo has recorded over 60 LP's and CD's, and has composed 350 musical works of diverse types, in addition to writing eight musicology books. In 2012 the Library of the University of Bologna opened the "Fondo Andrea Centazzo" with a collection of his works and documents.
Instrumental innovations During his earlier career Centazzo developed a number of percussion instruments, including the icebell, a bowl-shaped instrument made from a bronze alloy. In his 1980 work Indian Tapes he introduced the ogororo, lokole, tampang, tubophone and square bell, based on Native American instruments.
ICTUS The ICTUS record label was founded in 1976 by Centazzo and his wife, Carla Lugli. Its first release was Clangs by Centazzo and Steve Lacy. Subsequent albums also featured Andrew Cyrille and Lol Coxhill, among others. The label was wound up after eight years owing to financial difficulties, but was revived in 1995 and again in 2006.
Compositions Major compositions by Centazzo include the multimedia opera Tina (1996), The Soul in the Mist (2006), Moon in Winter (2011), The Heart of Wax (2012), and the multimedia project Tides of Gravity (2016). This last was produced in association with LIGO, NASA and Caltech to mark the first detection of gravitational waves.
Music albums
Source:
Filmography 1986 Romance 1992 Obiettivo indiscreto 1995 Shadow of a Kiss (TV movie) 1995 Star Struck 1999 I Karaoke (short) 2001 The Circle (short) 2009 La Corsa (short) 2009 Mei Mei (short) 2009 Toto Forever (short) 2010 Desire Street 2013 Ni Jing: Thou Shalt Not Steal 2015 Floating Melon 2016 Advent (film)
Books
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Important facts
People in Andrea Centazzo's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped Andrea Centazzo's
Frequently asked questions
Who is Andrea Centazzo?
Italian musician
When was Andrea Centazzo born?
Andrea Centazzo was born in 1948 in Udine.
What is Andrea Centazzo's occupation?
Andrea Centazzo is a composer, percussionist, record producer and visual artist.
What nationality is Andrea Centazzo?
Andrea Centazzo is American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Andrea Centazzo. https://biography.guide/andrea-centazzo/
MLA: "Andrea Centazzo." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/andrea-centazzo/.
Chicago: "Andrea Centazzo." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/andrea-centazzo/.
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