Stefano Mainetti

Life and Awards

Life

Italian composer, conductor, and author whose work spans film, television, theatre, symphonic music, and interdisciplinary research. His artistic career bridges the European tradition of orchestral composition with contemporary audiovisual storytelling, exploring the relationship between music, image, theatrical space, and emerging technologies.

In 2026, he was nominated for the Camille Awards, the prestigious European prize dedicated to music for the screen, in the category of Best Original Music for a Drama Series for his score to I Casi di Teresa Battaglia – Ninfa Dormiente. This nomination represents a significant international recognition of a career distinguished by its sustained contribution to film, television, theatre, and artistic innovation.

After studying classical guitar attended Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Rome where he earned a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude in Composition. He studied Conducting and holds a 1st class honors Master of Music in Film Scoring degree. Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, in Anthropology and Political Science, with a published dissertation on Richard Wagner. He was a student of Giorgio Caproni, one of the greatest 20th century italian poet who influenced his musical and artistic training.

He taught Composition and Film Scoring at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome and is a lecturer in the Master’s Program in Music Management and Media at Roma Tre University, where he explores the relationship between music and generative artificial intelligence. Stefano is one of the founders of the ACMF, the Italian Association of Music Composers for Films.

Stefano is one of the composers who scored the Sony Classical CD Abbà Pater. The album won 5 Gold and 2 Platinum Record Awards.

Represented by Diberti & C., Stefano composed the soundtracks of the feature films The Shooter, a Miramax Film by Ted Kotcheff (First Blood), Silent Trigger and Tale of the Mummy, both by Russell Mulcahy (Highlander), the latter Best Soundtrack Award at the 18th Fantafestival.

Working among the others with directors such as Perlini, Pizzi, Pugliese, Clucher, Castellari, D’Amato, De Sisti, Fulci, Nichetti and Soavi, he scored 32 feature films, 22 tv series, 68 documentary films, 42 stage productions, 5 symphonic project as well as 43 CDs, the European series Eurocops and the Italian television series Orgoglio (Pride) receiving the Ravello Cinemusic Prize for Best Italian Fiction Score at the Ravello Festival 2005.

Between 2007 and 2009 he composed and conducted the music for The Word of Promise, a huge US audio drama of the Bible in 79 cds featuring the voices of 5 Academy Award Winners: Richard Dreyfuss, John Voight, Louis Gossett Jr, Marisa Tomei, Marcia Gay Harden, plus the voices of over 600 actors including: Stacy Keach, Terence Stamp, Max Von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, Michael York e Jim Caviezel.

He is one of the composers of Alma Mater, a cd produced in 2009 by the Vatican and “Geffen Records”, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vatican Choir. This cd was nominated as Album of the Year at the Classic Brit Awards. An historic Concert at Westminster Cathedral was held in London 2010, featuring the first live performance conducted by the composers. In 2011 he composed and produced Tu Es Christus a Sony cd for the beatification of Pope Wojtyla featuring Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo.

In 2014, for Musa Comunicazione, he published the book La politica musicale nazista e l’influenza del culto wagneriano. In 2021 he was co-author, together with Simone Corelli e Gilberto Martinelli, of the treatise Dialoghi, Musica, Effetti: il Suono nell’audiovisivo. The book, won the critics’ award at the 13th edition of International Literary Award City of Cattolica.

Stefano is the author of Rendering Revolution. The project was presented at the MAXXI National Art Museum, Rome June 12, 2017; an “augmented music” experience in which music, painting, dance and video art are blended together in a spatial setting. A modern melodrama, in the most extended sense of the term, a non linear process in which the result is superior to the sum of the parts and in which each component – music, dance, painting and video art – concurs in creating an augmented reality that engrosses the spectator on a multi sensory level. Rendering Revolution, presented by the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, took two years of planning and has received the honorable mention award from Santa Cecilia Conservatory for its exceptional scientific and artistic achievement.

He is among the Italian personalities participating in the Charte 18-XXI, a collective of artists, scientists and philosophers brought together by Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, artistic director of the Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, with the aim of promoting international theatre, with young people and for young people.

He co-directed and composed the music for Grido per un nuovo Rinascimento , a project with the participation of many Italian artists, created to give visibility to the problems of all entertainment workers. The documentary of the event received the Special Mention at the Nastri d’Argento 2022. The entire production contributed to the recognition by the institutions of the National Day of Entertainment, which is celebrated every 24 October since 2021.