Marcello Sirignano is a Rome-based jazz violinist, arranger and composer, and one of the few Italian musicians to have built a sustained career as a jazz violin specialist rather than a doubling classical player. He earned his violin diploma at Rome's Conservatorio di Musica S. Cecilia in 1988, studying under Bruno Mollo, Mila Costisella and Paolo Damiani, then continued postgraduate violin study with Franco Tamponi and Pavel Vernikov. From 1990 he pursued jazz specifically, studying with violinist Massimo Fedeli and attending Berklee College of Music courses held in Perugia, and in 2005 he returned to S. Cecilia to earn a second diploma, this time in jazz.

Early orchestral work with the Sanremo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Regionale del Lazio and other Roman ensembles ran alongside session and soundtrack work that has occupied a large share of his career: as violinist, arranger and conductor he has worked with pop artists including Fiorella Mannoia, Laura Pausini, Loredana Berte, Gino Paoli, Sergio Cammariere and Antonello Venditti, and has contributed to film and television scores, including the 1990 documentary feature Bix - An Interpretation of a Legend. He has also recorded Baroque repertoire, appearing on a 2016 Tomaso Albinoni album with the ensemble Harmonia Urbis.

His jazz output centers on his own groups. His debut as a jazz leader arrived in April 2006 with Sun & Moon For Free, released under the group name The Crew and credited jointly to Sirignano, saxophonist Stefano Di Battista and pianist Danilo Rea on the C.A.M. Jazz label, all original compositions written and arranged by Sirignano. He followed it with Nice Scribbles (2013, Ultra Sound Records) under the Marcello Sirignano Quartet name, a session that drew in trumpeter Fabrizio Bosso, clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi, pianists Claudio Filippini and Danilo Rea, bassist Francesco Puglisi and drummer Cristiano Micalizzi. In 2020 he released The Missing Strings under the Marcello Sirignano Quintet name, revisiting jazz standards for quintet and orchestra with saxophonist Marco Guidolotti, pianist Andrea Rea, bassist Dario Rosciglione and drummer Lucrezio De Seta (this lineup is documented via a contemporary review rather than a Discogs credit, so it is reported here without a reciprocal cross-link). His most recent record, Violin In Love (2025), is a collaboration with Italian producer Papik, not yet indexed on Discogs but confirmed on Spotify and Apple Music.

Beyond his own catalog, Sirignano is a regular presence in Rome's jazz scene: he is Discogs-credited alongside Danilo Rea and bassist Giovanni Tommaso on the live compilation Jazzitaliano Live 2006 (Casa del Jazz), and alongside Di Battista, Rea and bassist Enzo Pietropaoli on Jazzitaliano Live 2009 (also Casa del Jazz). He has recorded with Rita Marcotulli (Koine, 2002), with Bruno Tommaso's Jazz Workshop (Vento del Nord - Vento del Sud, 2004), with Pietropaoli's own Pietropaoli Modern Syncopators (Urban Waltz, 2000), and on guitarist Battista Lena's film score for Domani (2001). He currently teaches jazz violin at Rome's Saint Louis College of Music, the Conservatorio Licinio Refice in Frosinone, and his own alma mater, the Conservatorio S. Cecilia.

Sirignano works in a niche within Italian jazz: the violin as a lead improvising voice rather than a section or classical-crossover instrument. His two core leader statements bracket that identity from different angles. Sun & Moon For Free sits in a contemporary jazz-fusion idiom, in the company of a saxophonist (Di Battista) and pianist (Rea) who were, by 2006, established names in Italian jazz, with all material composed and arranged by Sirignano himself. Nice Scribbles, by contrast, is a chamber-scaled quartet-plus-guests session built around interplay with piano, bass and drums, closer to a mainstream, standards-adjacent small-group format, and its guest list (Bosso, Mirabassi, Filippini) places Sirignano inside the same circle of players who anchor much of this project's Rome-centered coverage. Running underneath both records is his classical training: postgraduate violin study with Pavel Vernikov and a substantial orchestral and chamber-music career give his jazz playing a technical foundation distinct from most jazz-scene entrants, and his parallel, decades-long work as an arranger and conductor for major Italian pop vocalists (Mannoia, Pausini, Berte) is a real and separate second career, not a jazz side note - it is disclosed here plainly rather than folded into his jazz identity.