Biography

Guitarist and composer from Cagliari (Sardinia) holds a degree in classical guitar and one in Ethnomusicology from the DAMS of Bologna, with a research work on dance music for guitar in the folk repertory of South Sardinia (Campidano).
Francesco is an eclectic and versatile musician, and works across different artistic fields and with musicians of various genres. He has written, arranged and performed (as a soloist and in different ensembles) music for concerts, stage plays and documentaries.
In the past years, he focused his efforts as a composer on the research and the reinvention of the archetypes of Sardinian popular music into his own personal language.
S'acabbadòra, for solo guitar, was the first outcome of this research, and was awarded the 2° place at the International Guitar Composition Competition "BRESCIA CONTEMPORARY GUITAR 2008".
It is now published by Edizioni Curci.
Since then, his music has been regularly performed by numerous artists both in Italy and abroad (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, England, France, Switzerland, Japan, Canada and USA).
In 2011, he collaborated with Cuban composer Ailem Carvajal, who asked him to record Feketek, seis miniaturas para guitarra for her album Isla (2012), which won the "classical music" section of the prestigious "Cubadisco 2013" recording competition.
He subsequently collaborated with Sardinian double bass player and composer Sebastiano Dessanay on Duets of a Fool (2016) and 377: (2022).
In 2016, he wrote the triptych Giogu de Contus for double bass duo, dedicated to Rinaldo Asuni and Francesco Sergi and recorded the CD Nautilus for the independent label Stella Recordings, his first solo work which collects original compositions in which written parts and improvisation blend seamlessly.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, he wrote Attitus, a suite for flute in G and guitar dedicated to the Cordas et Bentu Duo and published by Canadian publisher D'oz.
In 2023, together with Stefano Colombelli, Carlo Pusceddu, Giulia Pisu, and Irene Coni, he launched the "Arrepicus" project, which features a guitar, double bass, percussion, and vocals. The project aims to be a sort of musical workshop in which to experiment and compose new music, exploring concrete and viable paths between the world of culture and that of Sardinian oral tradition.
Francesco is also a guitar teacher in the middle school and lives in Cagliari.