Luciano Berio (1925-2003) had one of the most distinctive voices in post-war modernist music. Largely trained at home in his youth - his father and grandfather were organists and composers - Berio entered the Milan Conservatory in 1945. A hand injury sustained while training as a conscript in Mussolini's army prevented him from pursuing a career as a performer and he began to concentrate on composition, studying with Giorgio Federico Ghedini at the Conservatory and, after graduation in 1951, with Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood.