The musician, musicologist, teacher and researcher Giorgio Colarizi was born at Fermo on 7 July 1912 and died there on 23 February 1999. His eclectic versatility, together with the vast range of his cultural interests and profound erudition, ensured that he played a prominent role in Italian musical culture in the second half of the 20th century. Having begun the study of composition with Amilcare Zanella, he continued with Cesare Dobici in Rome, once again gaining his diploma in Pesaro, in 1938. In 1937 he attended two courses at the Accademia Chigiana di Siena, advanced piano studies with Alfredo Casella and chamber music with Arturo Bonucci. After starting out to study classics he graduated cum laude in law in 1935 at the Regia Università in Macerata, with a thesis in civil law on copyright in works involving music and the cinema. Later on he attended the philosophy course at Rome University from 1948 to 1951, passing all the exams.His substantial output as a composer still remains to be explored. It owes much to the expressive climate fashioned in Italy by the “generation of the eighties”, and features works for solo piano, voice and piano, and small instrumental ensembles. True to his teaching vocation he collected, harmonised and translated a vast corpus of Italian and foreign choral music, with an eye in particular to the popular repertoire.