Vince Abbracciante was born in Ostuni, in Italy's Puglia region, on February 21, 1983. He began studying music at eight with his father, Franco, and went on to two parallel diplomas: a jazz music diploma from the Conservatorio "Nino Rota" in Monopoli under the pianist Gianni Lenoci, and a classical accordion diploma, with honors and special mention, from the Conservatorio "E. R. Duni" in Matera under Gian Vito Tannoia. Alongside the conservatory training he attended masterclasses with the pianist Franco D'Andrea, the bassist and composer Bruno Tommaso, the French accordionist Richard Galliano, the bassist Joelle Leandre, the saxophonist Steve Potts, the drummer Roberto Gatto, the pianist Dado Moroni and the saxophonist Rosario Giuliani, among others.

His competitive record predates his jazz identity: he won the 25th International Castelfidardo Competition in 2000 and the 53rd World Accordion Trophy in 2003, both general accordion-virtuosity competitions rather than jazz-specific prizes, and in 2011 the Castelfidardo festival gave him its "Voce d'Oro" (Golden Reed) award. The jazz recognition came later and has been repeated: the Orpheus Award, given in the Jazz Music category by the International Accordion Festival of Castelfidardo, went to Abbracciante three times - in 2021 for his album Terranima (ex aequo with the accordionist Simone Zanchini), in 2022 for Santuario, his duo record with the Argentine-Italian saxophonist Javier Girotto, and in 2024 for Melodico, a duo project with the trumpeter Andrea Sabatino.

Abbracciante's own site lists a 2012 debut titled Introducing... on the Puglia label Bumps Records; the Italian jazz site jazzconvention.net reviewed it that year, describing a jazz-context record of original compositions with guest spots from the American bassist Juini Booth and the violinist Luca Ciarla. That title carries no Discogs entry under any spelling checked, so it is reported here from press coverage rather than treated as an independently verified credit. His discography proper, as catalogued on Discogs, opens the same year with Tango! (2012, Fo(u)r Edition), a duo record with the singer Paola Arnesano recorded at Studio Sorriso in Bari; the two went on to make MPB! (Musica Popular Brasileira) (2017, Dodicilune), built from Brazilian popular song, and later Operal (2022, Dodicilune), a programme of nineteenth-century Italian opera arias for voice and accordion - a classical rather than jazz record, and the one outlier in an otherwise jazz-tagged catalogue.

His first leader album proper, Sincretico (2017, Dodicilune), paired the accordion with a string quartet (the Alkemia Quartet), guitarist Nando Di Modugno and bassist Giorgio Vendola on eight original compositions. Terranima (2019, Dodicilune) expanded the same chamber instrumentation and added the clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi as a featured guest, plus flute, bass clarinet, horn and percussion; a contemporary review in blogfoolk.com called it "a symphony that unfolds between Puglia, Salento and Brazil," noting that one piece addresses the xylella bacterium that has devastated Puglia's olive groves. Santuario (2021, Dodicilune) stripped the format back to a duo with Javier Girotto on soprano and baritone saxophone and Andean quena flute, the third long-running accordion-and-reed duo record in Girotto's catalogue after his two with the accordionist Luciano Biondini. Melodico (2023, Dodicilune) is billed on Discogs as a leader date for the trumpeter Andrea Sabatino with Abbracciante as a credited sideman, though press coverage and the Orpheus Award description both treat it as a duo project between the two.

Beyond his own records, Abbracciante has worked widely as a session accordionist: Discogs credits him on recordings led by Fabio Accardi, the Mario Rosini Group, Ornella Vanoni, Camillo Pace, Michele Perruggini, Erica Mou, the violinist Alessandro Quarta (on an album of Astor Piazzolla repertoire), Serena Spedicato (as accordionist, arranger and music director), Elga Paoli, Antonio Di Lorenzo, Aldo Di Caterino and, on organ rather than accordion, the organist Stefano Rielli. Several of these - the Vanoni, Erica Mou and Camillo Pace credits among them - are pop or chanson sessions rather than jazz dates, consistent with a working Puglia session musician's range rather than a shift away from his jazz core. He has performed on five continents and across more than thirty countries, and has composed film scores for the director Gianni Torres.

Abbracciante's catalogue runs on a consistent idea: the accordion as a chamber-jazz voice, paired against strings, reeds and a single other melodic instrument rather than a conventional jazz rhythm section. Sincretico and Terranima both use a string quartet in place of bass and drums; Santuario reduces the format further, to a single duo partner. Tango and Brazilian popular music (MPB) run through the catalogue as named repertoire choices - Tango!, MPB! and the tango-facing material on Santuario with Girotto - alongside more freely composed original writing on Sincretico and Terranima. Richard Galliano, whom Abbracciante studied with in masterclass, called him, in comments reported by his own management, a player who "embarks on a story which touches me" in every piece, a description that matches the reviewers' language around Terranima's balance of taut, dance-rhythm passages against more reflective ones. On Terranima specifically, Abbracciante has described Gabriele Mirabassi's contribution as "determinative," crediting the clarinetist's ease moving between unfamiliar pieces and atmospheres as a shaping influence on the record's sequencing.