Italo Selvelli

Italo Selvelli (10 November 1863 – 11 May 1918) was an Italian composer, pianist and orchestra director, who lived and worked in Istanbul during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire.

Italo Selvelli

Biography

Italo Giovanni Selvelli was born in Istanbul in 1863. His parents were Michele Selvelli (Fano, Italy, 1825 - Istanbul, 1895) and Maria Sigalla (Syros, Greece, 1838 - Istanbul, 1904). Italo Selvelli attended the Royal College of Music of Palermo between 1876 and 1881.

Since 1887 he was active in conducting operas, operettas and ballets at the Nouveau Theatre and Concordia Theatre of Istanbul. Throughout his life he also practised as a music teacher for several members of the Ottoman aristocracy.

On 16 June 1889 he married Anna Maria Pussich (1866-1954) who gave him two sons and two daughters.

In 1891 Italo Selvelli was appointed director of the orchestra and the music school of Tophane in Istanbul, the first non-military band of the Ottoman Empire, founded by Zeki Pasha.

In 1909, when Sultan Reshad came to the Imperial throne with the name of Mehmed V, an open competition was called for deciding the new official march of the Sultan. To be chosen was Italo Selvelli's polyphonic composition, since then known as the "Resadiye March". This march was actually the last official personal march of a Sultan in the history of the Ottoman Empire, as the following and last Sultan Mehmed VI, who ascended the throne in 1918 in a difficult political situation, refused to adopt a personal march.

Italo Selvelli died on 11 May 1918, probably because of an anthrax infection. His tomb is still visible in the Osmanbey Christian Cemetery of Istanbul.

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