Elio Boncompagni, after graduating in composition, went to Rome to become Franco Ferrara's orchestra conduction school's first student. Later, he became Tullio Serafin's assistant.
At the beginning of the Sixties he was already very well established: concerts, operatic performances, recordings. He was music director at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, and led the first performance of the Molière.