Filippo Sebastianelli is a tenor saxophonist and composer working in Italy's Marche region. He took a saxophone diploma in 1995 at the Conservatorio "G. Rossini" in Pesaro, studying with Federico Mondelci, added a diploma in music education there in 1999, and specialized in music education at the University of Bologna in 2001. Before turning to jazz he played in classical and pop groups across Italy, and in 1996 he began jazz study with the saxophonist Michael Rosen, later working with Emanuele Cisi, the pianist Ramberto Ciammarughi and the trombonist Massimo Morganti. His official biography also lists seminars with David Kikoski, Kenny Wheeler, Ayn Inserto, George Garzone, Bob Brookmeyer, Bob Mintzer and Scott Robinson; these are stated in the biography and are not release credits. Besides tenor he plays clarinet, flute and piano, and he holds a permanent teaching post in saxophone at the Liceo Musicale "G. Marconi" in Pesaro.

Since 2002 he has been a tenor saxophonist in the Colours Jazz Orchestra, the Marche-based big band founded by Morganti and built around players from the region. Discogs credits him with the orchestra on two albums. Nineteen Plus One (Astarte, 2009) was recorded at Naive Studio in Fano on June 26 to 29, 2007, with the Canadian trumpeter and composer Kenny Wheeler arranging a program of seven standards and one original, "W.W.," and playing trumpet and flugelhorn with the band; the singer Diana Torto is credited on voice, Morganti conducts, and the drummer is Massimo Manzi. Sebastianelli is one of two tenor saxophonists, alongside Enrico Benvenuti. Home Away From Home (Neuklang, 2014) presents the music of the American composer Ayn Inserto, who arranged and conducted; he plays tenor saxophone and clarinet in a section with Antonangelo Giudice, again with Manzi on drums, and the sessions were held at Naive Studio in March 2013. The orchestra's other albums, "Quando m'innamoro"... In Jazz (2010, on the orchestra's own CJO imprint) and Momenti (EGEA, 2021, led by Morganti), carry no itemized personnel on Discogs. His biography names that 2010 record as the orchestra's second CD and lists festival dates with the band at Umbria Jazz, Fano Jazz, Ancona Jazz, Matera, Verona, Pesaro and Prato, alongside the orchestra's guests, among them Javier Girotto, Rosario Giuliani, Fabrizio Bosso, Gianluca Petrella, Maria Schneider, Bob Brookmeyer, Scott Robinson and Barbara Casini.

His third Discogs credit is the film-music project Movie Medley. Il Grande Jazz a Cinecittà (Wysiwyg, 2020), led by the double bassist Manuele Montanari, who transcribed and arranged the music. It is a 14-track big-band program of themes from Italian films, recorded on September 10 to 12, 2019 at Naive Recording Studio in Fano and on October 22, 2019 in Perugia. Sebastianelli plays tenor saxophone and clarinet in a section with Milo Lombardi, and Gabriele Mirabassi is the featured clarinetist. The repertoire includes "Blues All'Alba" by Giorgio Gaslini from Antonioni's La Notte and "Ultimo Tango a Parigi" by Gato Barbieri, alongside themes by Piero Umiliani, Riz Ortolani, Nino Rota, Armando Trovaioli and Ennio Morricone.

The one album under his own name is Ad Occhi Chiusi (Notami Jazz, released November 15, 2019), a quintet record in which he plays tenor saxophone with Luca Pecchia on guitar, Gabriele Pesaresi on double bass and Enzo Zirilli on drums and percussion, and with his former teacher Michael Rosen on soprano saxophone, who also holds the artistic direction credit. Of its eight tracks, five are his own compositions ("Light Years," "Impro Ponibile," "Stillness," "Ouagadougou Sunrise" and the title track); the others are Pesaresi's "Due Giorni," Pecchia's "Encuentro" and Jerome Kern's "Nobody Else But Me." Pecchia and Pesaresi are also members of the Colours Jazz Orchestra, per Discogs. The critic Stefano Dentice reviewed it in Strumenti&Musica on March 28, 2020, calling it an album between modern and contemporary jazz.

Outside jazz, his biography lists pop and session work: the 2004 album Big band! and 2005 tour with the singer Antonella Ruggiero, and collaborations with Peppino di Capri, Riccardo Fogli and Ivana Spagna, plus appearances at Musicultura in Macerata and dates in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Monaco. Among the jazz musicians he names as partners in his small-group work are Massimo Manzi, Luca Pecchia, Gabriele Pesaresi, Simone La Maida, Enzo Zirilli, Michael Rosen, Diana Torto and Alessandro Paternesi.

Sebastianelli describes his approach as a fusion of traditional and contemporary phrasing, with creative touches of his own, built on a dual classical and jazz education. The Strumenti&Musica review of Ad Occhi Chiusi describes his tenor sound as warming, enveloping and sinuous, with a narrative quality, and finds the album full of expressive warmth; it singles out the dissonant "Impro Ponibile," the driving "Ouagadougou Sunrise" and the tenor and soprano interplay of "Encuentro." Discogs files the album under Jazz with no style tag, and the orchestra albums under Big Band and Contemporary Jazz.

Most of his recorded work is section playing in a contemporary big band, in the tradition of writers such as Wheeler, Inserto and Bob Brookmeyer, whose music the Colours Jazz Orchestra has performed; his own quintet record is a small-group counterpart.