Composer Marco di Stefano Reflects on the Endless Toll of War in "Angels on Our Shoulders"

With “Angels on Our Shoulders,” composer Marco Di Stefano has crafted a work that honors the memory of World War II’s fallen while reflecting on the wars and conflicts that still shadow the modern world today.

The lead single from his upcoming album Far Inside, this is a powerful and stirring brass driven composition that embodies heroism, loss and remembrance. At once a requiem and a cinematic score in its own right.

Listen here:

The track opens with brass writing that is solemn yet uplifting, a palette of tones that immediately conjures both grandeur and grief.

Conducting the live brass ensemble himself, Di Stefano ensures that the performance breathes. The sonorities swell and recede like waves of memory, at times hushed with reverence, at others bold with determination as though carrying the voices of those who fought and fell.

Around the brass, di Stefano's orchestration builds textures that evoke the classic soundworlds of mid-20th century film scores. And yet, the language is distinctly modern. It's a definite re-imagining of period music through today’s compositional lens.

Accompanying the piece is a video that heightens its cinematic dimension. Styled with the color grades of war epics such as Saving Private Ryan, it incorporates some AI generated images of soldiers staring into the desolation of battle.

What makes this work especially compelling is how it reflects Di Stefano’s singular artistic journey. Unlike many classical composers, his beginnings were not in a conservatory but in the raw energy of a metal band, where he performed as lead guitarist.

This unconventional start eventually led him to formal piano studies, where he established it as his primary tool of expression. From there, he immersed himself in more than a decade of study with leading contemporary masters, with Giovanni D’Aquila, Adriano Guarnieri and Luc Brewaeys among them.

To sharpen his skill for narrative scoring, Di Stefano graduated from the European Academy of Fine Arts’ media scoring program and went on to study privately with celebrated game composer Jason Graves.

Graves, recognizing his rare and unique talent, placed him in the top 3% of his students and emphatically declared him “ready to score a game.”

In October 2025, Di Stefano’s trajectory continues upward as one of just twelve composers chosen for the Fusion Film Scoring Workshop in Thessaloniki, where he will score a short film for live ensemble.

It is this fusion of background - guitarist, pianist, classical scholar and media scorer - that infuses “Angels on Our Shoulders”. It is music that tells a story without words, translating emotion into sound in a way that is effortless.

“Even if World War II is a century beyond us, war is present in our modern world,” Di Stefano reflects. “This song is composed using a modern language and instrumentation that evokes the spirit of that era and drama."

In “Angels on Our Shoulders,” Di Stefano does exactly that.

Reaching across time to remind us that heroism and sacrifice are never lost to history, but continue to echo in the music of today.

Find out more about Marco di Stefano on his Website

Stream music on Spotify and Apple Music