Giuseppe Giovanni Battista Malerbi was born in Lugo on October the 22nd 1771 from a wealthy family and died in 1849. He was a composer and a music teacher.
The Malerbi family used to live just in the town centre and beside they also owned, since 1800, a palace in the countryside (which nowadays is home of “Istituto musicale Malerbi”, the music school named after Giuseppe).
As a child, Giuseppe grew up in a rich and stimulating cultural environment and he got his first pipe-organ lessons probably from his mother’s father, who was Andrea Locatelli.
At the age of seventeen, he became the organist of the church of the Francescans monks in Lugo. Five years later, in 1793, he became choir master in the church of Saints Petronio and Prospero, which is now called S.Giacomo Maggiore, succeeding his teacher Giambattista Vitali.
In 1804 he was composer at “Accademia Filarmonica” in Bologna. Together with his brother Luigi, Giuseppe founded “Istituzione dei Putti cantori della Confraternita del Corpus Domini”, a treble voices choir which, being introduced by his father, was attended also by Gioacchino Rossini, so becoming Malerbi’s pupil. Together with his brother Luigi, Giuseppe also started a private music school, which soon became “Accademia Filarmonica” of Lugo.
