Luciano Chessa was born in 1971 in Sassari, Italy. He pursued his musical education in Bologna, where he earned a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and an M.A. in Composition from the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music, as well as an M.A. magna cum laude in History of Medieval Music. During his time in Bologna, Chessa was active in promoting music concerts and lectures, featuring a diverse range of composers from the garage rock group Gli Avvoltoi to Sylvano Bussotti and Malcolm Goldstein. He recorded tracks that contributed to his debut LP, "Humus," released in 1997 by the Italian label Destination X, which was later recognized by Rockerilla’s critics as one of the ten best international recordings of that year. Additional recordings from this period were compiled in the "Peyrano" CD, reissued in March 2012 by Skank Bloc Records.
Chessa later relocated to California, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Musicology and Music Criticism from the University of California at Davis. From 1999 to 2004, he was a member of the UC Davis Gospel Choir, serving as assistant conductor under Calvin Lymos, the choir's principal director.
As a multifaceted artist, Chessa has worked as a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist across Europe, the U.S., and Australia. His notable compositions include "Variazioni su un oggetto di scena" (2002) for piano and stuffed toys; a piano and percussion duet based on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s "Petrolio," written for Sarah Cahill and Chris Froh and showcased in 2004 at the American Academy in Rome; and "Il pedone dell’aria," a work for orchestra and double children choir premiered in 2006 at the Auditorium of Turin's Lingotto, which was subsequently released on DVD. His collaborations with video artist Terry Berlier include "Louganis" for piano and TV/VCR combo, performed at the Monday Evening Concerts in 2010, and "Inkless Imagination IV," a complex piece for viola, mini-bass musical saw, turntables, piano, percussion, FM radios, blimp, and video projection, which premiered at UC Davis' Mondavi Center by the Empyrean Ensemble. Most recently, he composed "A Heavenly Act," an opera commissioned by SFMOMA with a libretto by Gertrude Stein and video by Kalup Linzy, which premiered on August 19, 2011, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
Chessa's research as a musicologist focuses on twentieth-century experimental music and late fourteenth-century music, specifically Ars Subtilior. In 2001, his extensive research on Italian Futurism led to the modern premiere of Francesco Cangiullo’s Futurist sound poems "Piedigrotta" and "Serata in onore di Yvonne," which received critical acclaim. His expertise in Futurism resulted in an invitation from RoseLee Goldberg, the General Director of the New York-based Biennale of the Arts PERFORMA, to direct the first reconstruction of Russolo’s earliest intonarumori orchestra and curate concerts of music specifically commissioned for this ensemble.
The new Intonarumori ensemble debuted in October 2009 at San Francisco’s YBCA’s Novellus Theater and was presented in New York City’s Town Hall in November for PERFORMA 09. These events were co-produced by PERFORMA and SFMOMA, featuring Minna Choi's Magik*Magik Orchestra and showcasing an impressive range of world premieres from composers including Blixa Bargeld, John Butcher, Tony Conrad, and many others. Chessa's own contributions included "L’acoustique ivresse" for bass voice and intonarumori ensemble, along with the modern premiere of Russolo's "Risveglio di una città" in a new edition by Chessa, which was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best arts events of 2009.
In September 2010, Chessa presented the Intonarumori in its first Italian appearance at the MART museum in Rovereto, Italy, as part of the Festival Transart. This performance featured notable artists such as Blixa Bargeld, Nicholas Isherwood, and Sylvano Bussotti, who performed his "Variazione Russolo-Slancio d'angoli" accompanied by Isherwood and the Intonarumori orchestra, along with two new commissioned pieces by Margareth Kammerer and Teho Teardo. In March 2011, he conducted the Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners in a sold-out concert for the Berliner Festspiele Maerzmusik Festival, which included "Gramophone Saraswati," a new piece by Amelia Cuni and Werner Durand. In December 2011, Chessa led a project with the New World Symphony at their Frank Gehry-designed New World Center's Concert Hall, marking the tenth anniversary of Art Basel | Miami Beach. This performance featured Joan La Barbara's "Striations" and the premiere of Lee Ranaldo’s "It All Begins Now (Whose Streets? Our Streets!)."
In 2008, Chessa founded his own label, Strawberry Hill Records, through which he self-published recordings from 2003 to 2007, as well as an anthology of early home recordings from 1990 to 1998. In 2012, the University of California Press published his "Luigi Russolo Futurist: Noise, Visual Arts, and the Occult," the first monograph dedicated to Russolo and his Art of Noise, which received enthusiastic reviews.
