Riccardo Nova was born in Milan. He contemporaneously studied both flute and composition at the G. Verdi Conservatory of Milan, with Giuliano Zosi and Giacomo Manzoni, respectively. He went on to advanced studies with Franco Donatoni in Milan and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, where he earned a diploma of merit in 1989.
He has been working with all main European ensemble such as Ictus Ensemble, Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble InterContemporain,Arditti string quartet, Ensemble L'Itinéraire, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgard, Ensemble Musiques Nouvelle, Alter Ego, Icarus, Quintetto Bibiena etc.
His music has been performed on important concert series, including the "Ars Musica" Festival in Brussels, the "Wien Modern" Festival in Vienna, the "Festival Prèsences" sponsored by Radio France, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the "Festival Archipel" of Geneva, Festival Agora in Paris, the Tokyo New Music Festival, Saison musicale IRCAM in Paris, Milano Musica and Società del Quartetto in Milan, Biennale di Venezia in Venice, Festival Ultrashall in Berlin, ECLAT in Stutgard;The REC festival in Reggio Emilia recently has produced several projects focused on his music.
Since early 90s he has been living periodically in India where he studied South Indian music with M.T. Raja Kesari (a former student of Karaikudi R. Mani).
Since 1995 Riccardo Nova is active in the field of "hard core/advantgarde techno" He is the founder with Max Viel of the group "Overclockd".
He composed the music for MA, the world wide acclaimed production of the young Asian/British coreographer Akram Khan. Since its première in Singapore in May 2004 MA has had more than 150 performances in all the most important theatres in the world (Sydney Opera House, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Théatre de la Ville, etc.).
In 2006 he has composed the music for "Portopalo: nomi su tombe senza corpi" a theatrical Requiem dedicated to the memory of the 276 victims of Portopalo tragedy.
Several of his chamber works and works for percussion, reflections of his studies on polyrhythm, have been recorded on two CDs for Stradivarius label, in performances respectively by the Caput Ensemble of Reykjavik and the Symbola Ensemble. His composition MA's sequence 7 has been recorded for Karnatic Lab Records. Eleven 420:11@destruction generating deity has been recorded for Impossible Records.
In 2006 he has composed the Thirteen/13x8@terror generating deity trilogy, which ended in a work for seven soloists (ALTER EGO&DGD), two Techno Musicians (PAN SONIC from Helsinki) and orchestra, a coproduction of Orchestra RAI Turin, and Ictus Ensemble from Brussels.Thirteen 13x8@terror generating deity the ultimate reality was selected at the International ROSTRUM of composeres 2007.
A portrait concert dedicated to Nova's latest production was performed by the ICTUS ensemble in occasion of the 17th edition of MILANO MUSICA 2008 in Milan.
He has composed the music for IPNOS a dance project produced in 2008 by Accademia Della Scala (Milan).
Presently he is working on musical project which will be coproduced by ICTUS and Opera Lille. Riccardo Nova lives in Mysore (south India)
Riccardo Nova's music is published both by SugarMusic - Edizioni Suvini Zerboni and Casa Ricordi.
