Five-time SOCAN Award Winning composer Michele Selvaggi hails from the heart of downtown Toronto with strong Southern Italian roots. With “a compositional approach that is nourished by a special sonic apparatus” (Percorsi Musicali), Michele is concerned deeply with the physiological experience of sound, notably driven by their own confrontation with time’s passage. Their experimental work is coloured from earlier engagement in natural sciences, resulting in noisy topographies and detailed electroacoustic environments shaded by demanding anxiety and OCD.

Michele has received commissions from and collaborates with organizations across Europe and North America, including loadbang, CIRMMT, Nouvelle Ensemble Moderne, SWR Symphonieorchester, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, UdK Berlin, Museum Tinguely, CEAM, MCME, Redshift Music, New Music Concerts, Arraymusic, and the Eastman School of Music. Michele has also been the recipient of over 20 awards and prizes including a Fromm Foundation Composer Fellowship, the 2025 Eduard Brunner Composition Prize at the Musik-Akademie Basel, Eastman School of Music’s 2020 International Call for Scores, CEC’s Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux Award, as well as the Residency Prix CIME 2021. Their music has been included in the 2024 Canadian Section's official submission to World Music Days, been shortlisted for a 2022 Red Jasper Award, and led to nomination for a 2021 Rhodes Scholarship.

In their recent work, Michele has developed a body of research exploring what they coin as “sonic entropy”, culminating in a prize-winning thesis on Entropic Drift in musical systems at the Musik-Akademie Basel. They have recently completed a related series of electroacoustic works commissioned by Basel-based performers, funded by the Nicati - de Luze Foundation.

Michele holds a Bachelor of Music Composition from the University of Toronto, as well as a Master and Postgraduate in Music Composition from the Musik-Akademie Basel. They have studied primarily with Norbert Palej, James Rolfe, Bekah Simms, Darren Copeland, Johannes Kreidler, Casper Johannes Walter, and Volker Böhm, as well as taken lessons and masterclasses with Raven Chacon, Clara Iannotta, Chaya Czernowin, Francesco Filidei, Pierluigi Billone, Mark Andre, Stefan Prins, Vladimir Rannev, and Martin Matalon.