Federico Casagrande is an Italian guitarist born on 27 February 1980 in Treviso, in the Veneto, and raised in the village of Badoere. He began with classical music as a child, then did his early jazz schooling at the Officina Musicale in Mogliano Veneto, where he won scholarships to the Umbria Jazz Clinics and, from there, to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He studied at Berklee from 2003 to 2006 and graduated summa cum laude.

The next step came quickly. In 2007 he won first prize at the Gibson Montreux Jazz Festival Guitar Competition, with George Benson presiding over the jury, and the win led to an invitation to the Montreux Jazz Artists Foundation's New Echo System residency program in Venice. In September 2007 he moved to Paris with his Telecaster, built a footing through the city's jam sessions, and has been based there since. He described the choice in a 2014 interview with the Tribuna di Treviso as a matter of network: in his words, almost everyone gravitates to the capital.

His first records as a leader appeared in 2009 and 2010. Conversations (Impossible Ark, 2009) is a duo with trumpeter Fulvio Sigurtà; Spirit of the Mountains (Dodicilune, 2009) is a trio with bassist Stefano Senni and drummer Ferenc Nemeth; and Falling From the Sky (Hyenas Records, 2010) is the debut of The Drops, the group he co-founded with saxophonist Christophe Panzani, recorded in Brooklyn in September 2009 with drummer Ted Poor. Hypercube - Le Cose Grandi E Le Cose Piccole (2011), a duo with drummer Marco Buccelli, is entirely improvised and was recorded at Searsound Studio in New York in February 2009.

The CAM Jazz years began with The Ancient Battle of the Invisible (2012), recorded in Paris on 5 and 6 December 2011 with bassist Simon Tailleu, drummer Gautier Garrigue and vibraphonist Jeff Davis, all of the music composed by Casagrande. At the End of the Day (2015), an acoustic record made in Paris in January 2014, brought in accordionist Vincent Peirani, cellist Vincent Courtois and percussionist Michele Rabbia. Then came a duo album with pianist Enrico Pieranunzi: Double Circle (2015), recorded at Artesuono in Cavalicco in November 2014, with Casagrande on acoustic guitar. The Irish Times review by Cormac Larkin (16 April 2015) called it an understated gem of chamber jazz and praised his bell-like acoustic guitar weaving in and out of Pieranunzi's lines. The same year The Oldest Living Thing set him alongside Sigurtà and bassist Steve Swallow, and in 2017 Fast Forward brought a working electric trio with bassist Joe Sanders and drummer Ziv Ravitz, recorded in Paris on 2 and 3 July 2016.

Two long partnerships run through the later catalog. With saxophonist and clarinetist Francesco Bearzatti he has a duo that has toured Europe for about a decade: Lost Songs (CAM Jazz, 2018), recorded live at the Abbazia di Rosazzo winery and built on Bearzatti's short compositions, and And Then Winter Came Again (CAM Jazz, released 13 September 2024), a studio record in which Casagrande wrote the music. In his review for Citizen Jazz (1 December 2024), Gilles Gaujarengues pointed to the unusual pairing of tenor saxophone and electric Telecaster and to the record's contemplative, wintry mood. Casagrande also plays on Bearzatti's larger projects, including The Peace Concert (Parco della Musica Records, 2026), where he is credited on guitar alongside bassist Alessandro Turchet. The second partnership is Vincent Peirani's trio Jokers, which he joined in 2018 with Ziv Ravitz on drums and keyboards. Their studio album Jokers (ACT, 2022) was recorded in October 2021 and mixes jazz, rock and electronics, and a live album, Jokers - Live at Bimhuis, followed on ACT.

Outside those groups he works in small, distinct formats. Amrut Laya (2023) is a trio with bassist Daniele Camarda and Ravitz. Flux (2022) is ten freely improvised duets with bassist Florent Nisse. Sirius is a guitar and drums duo with Garrigue. Under Water the Way Out (2020) is a solo guitar record, and Looping Mont Blanc (2025) is a solo project he recorded while trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc with a foldable electric guitar and a loop pedal, producing 22 short videos and a 14-track album released on 13 June 2025; it followed two earlier video series shot in the Dolomites and in Nepal. In October 2024 he toured Australia solo, with dates in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. His newest release is Gentle Riders (Soundfede, 11 September 2026), a trio with bassist Etienne Renard and drummer Stephane Adsuar that blends Americana and country color with jazz, with Vincent Peirani guesting on accordina on "Good Night Mongolia." He has been named a finalist for European Musician of the Year by the Académie du Jazz, and his official biography lists concerts in more than thirty countries.

Casagrande describes himself as a jazz musician with classical training, and the polyphonic habit of that training shows in his playing: he tends to treat the guitar as a small ensemble, whether he is alone with loops, in a duo, or in a rhythm section. In the 2014 Tribuna di Treviso interview he named Jim Hall, Kurt Rosenwinkel and David Tronzo as key influences. Critics have placed the harmonic layering on And Then Winter Came Again in the world of Kenny Wheeler, Paul Motian and Bill Frisell, and he says notes come before effects, even though his rig includes loopers and processors for the solo and Jokers work.

The catalog moves between chamber-scale acoustic records (At the End of the Day, Double Circle, The Oldest Living Thing), amplified trio and quartet jazz (The Ancient Battle of the Invisible, Fast Forward), free improvisation (Hypercube, Flux), and rock- and electronics-tinged group work (The Drops, Jokers, and the country-inflected Gentle Riders). The mountains are a recurring subject: Spirit of the Mountains and Sketch of Mountain carry it in the titles, and Looping Mont Blanc makes it the method.