Alberto Colla was born in Alessandria, Italy, in 1968. He graduated in Composition with Carlo Mosso and Riccardo Piacentini, in Piano, in Choral Music and Chorus Conducting at the Conservatoire of Alessandria. After this he studied Composition with Azio Corghi, at first, in 1997, to the Goffredo Petrassi Academy in Parma and then, in 1998, to the Academy of “Santa Cecilia” in Rome.
Colla is a leading winner of awards among young Italian composers, he won 1st. prizes in the following competitions: "Concorso Internazionale G. Verdi per la Composizione di un’Opera lirica"- Parma - Italy (2001); "Premier Prix International de Composition 'Abu Ghazaleh Intellectual Property'"- Paris - France (2000); "The D. Mitropoulos International Competition 1999 for Composing" - Athens - Greece (1999); "BMW Kompositionspreis der Musica Viva" - München - Germany (1998); "Third International E. Grieg Memorial Competition for Composers" Oslo - Norway (1997); International Competition for Composers "Città di Alessandria" (1997); International Competition for Composers "2 Agosto" in Bologna (1996), and many others, in Italy and abroad.
His compositions were selected by major festivals and concert organizers such as: Juilliard School and Sonic Boom Festival in New York, the Festival of Salzbourg in Austria, the 46th Bergen International Festival in Norway, Musica Viva Bayerischer Rundfunk, The Fifth European Music Festival and the KammerMusikFestival in Germany, the Nafplion Festival in Athens, the Chelyabinsk Opera Theatre in Russia, the ISCM World Music Days 2000 in Luxembourg, Teatro alla Scala of Milan: Lyric Season 2001-2002, Theatre “R. Valli” in Reggio Emilia: Lyric Season 2001-2002, the Festival Settembre Musica, the Festival of Città di Castello, the Academy of Santa Cecilia and Nuova Consonanza in Rome, Di Nuovo Musica in Reggio Emilia etc.
His music has been performed by major orchestras such as: Mozarteum Symphony Orchestra Salzburg, Orchestra of Colours Athens, Juilliard Symphony Orchestra New York, Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Kringkastingsorkesteret Oslo, Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Emilia Romagna, Cheljabinsk State Academic Opera “M. Glinka”.
He concentrated his musical research in particular on polystylism and on symbolism in intervals, themes and gestures. He worked out orchestration like a summa of different techniques, bordering on quotation, transcription, parody and evocation. He examined the “nostalgia” of time past musical ideas (working on material by Baldassare Galuppi, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Fryderyk Chopin, Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov, Edvard Grieg, Kurt Weill, Robert Russell Bennett, Igor Stravinskij etc.). He studied how to elaborate monodic sacred European music, extra-European musical technique (Egypt, Middle East, Mesopotamia, Indonesia) and ethnologic musical technique (central Africa, Amazonia).
His music is published by Universal Edition in Wien, BMG Ricordi and Sonzogno in Milan.
The first volume of the series La stanza degli specchi for piano solo