Ethnomusicologist and composer, Mauro Campagnoli is graduated in Cultural Anthropology cum laude and "dignità di stampa" (a special academic distintion) from Turin University, where he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology. He also got two diplomas in Composition and Choral Music & Choir Conducting at "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory of music, Turin.
Since years he conducts anthropological and ethnomusicological fieldwork in Africa, with the Italian Ethnological Mission in Equatorial Africa. He was granted scolarships from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from the Piedmontese Centre of African Studies.
From 1998 to 2000 he studied the music of some Bantu populations of Western and Northwestern Cameroon (Bamiléké, Bamoun, Bafut, Bamenda, etc.).
Since 2000 he conducts fieldworks in Cameroon's south-eastern rainforest among Baka Pygmies, studying their music, dances, language, and rites of initiation. There, during a research mission, he took part into the secret rite of men's initiation to Jengi, the Spirit of the Forest, becoming a member of a baka patrilinear clan.
In 2001 he took part into the Italian tour of an Aka Pygmy group from Central African Republic (the "Nzamba Lela Group") as a cultural mediator and ethnomusicologist.
From 2000 to 2005 he returned among Baka Pygmies to continue his ethnomusicological fieldwork and to begin studying a women's rite of initiation and the material culture of this pygmy group. During these expeditions he also went among BaKola-BaGyeli Pygmies and Bedzan-Tikar Pygmies in an other area of the rainforest, starting a fieldwork about their traditional music and dances.
Besides the ethnological research, he occasionally contributes to national magazines and newspapers (like La Stampa, Focus, Specchio, etc.) with articles and photo-reportages about African peoples and various anthropological subjects.
Some publications regarding the ethnographic material he collected in the field (photos, videos, audio recordings and objects of the material culture of the peoples studied) are in preparation.
With regard to music and composition, he won many national and international composition contests (such as the "Musica 2000" First Prize of Contemporary Music at the Big Torino 2000 Contest, the "Licinio Refice International Composition Prize", the "Annual University of Montevallo Composition Contest" in Alabama, USA, etc.).
He followed training courses coordinated by important European contemporary composers, such as Emmanuel Nunes, Gérard Grisey and Ennio Morricone at the Chigiana Academy of Siena, and when he was a schoolboy he joined the choir of Young Choristers of the Royal Teatre of Turin ("Piccoli Cantori del Teatro Regio di Torino").
Some of his works were released by "Bérben" (an Italian Publishing House) and his compositions were played during important world music and contemporary music festivals, like the "Festa della Musica" of Milan. He occasionally collaborated with RAI Italian Television Network as soundtrack composer for documentaries and with some advertisement agencies.
Before completely devoting himself to composition and ethnomusicology, he attended the Drama Art School "Paolo Grassi", Milan, directed by Gabriele Vacis and "Sergio Tofano School of Acting" of Teatro Alfa, Turin, directed by Mario Brusa.
