Born in Grosseto, Macchi moved to Rome to study composition, piano, violin and singing with Roman Vlad (1946–51) and Hermann Scherchen (1949–54), among others.
From the late fifties, he began his collaboration with a group of musicians (Franco Evangelisti, Domenico Guaccero and Daniele Paris), to whom he was bound by intense friendship.
Together with Domenico Guaccero, Daniele Paris and Antonino Titone, he was one of the editors of the magazine Orders, which first appeared in 1959.
With Bertoncini, Bortolotti, Clementi, De Blasio, Evangelisti, Guaccero, Paris, Pennisi, and Franco Norris, he founded the Association of New Consonance in 1960.
In 1978, he was part of the Italian commission for the music of UNICEF, together with Luis Bacalov, Franco Evangelisti, Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota.
In 1984 he became one of the founders of I.R.T.E.M (Institute of Research for Musical Theatre), together with Paola Bernardi, Carlo Marinelli and Ennio Morricone.
It is with the Sound Archive that he created a series of conferences, meetings and seminars for the knowledge and diffusion of contemporary music.
In November 1991 he completed La Bohème, a transcription for sixteen instruments and four synthesizers, and Morricone similarly adapted Tosca.
Such a feeling of rebirth is evident in the earlier work Composizione (1958) for chamber orchestra in which sounds flow from silence in the frame of a "process narrative" (Titone 1980, 43).
2, however this was an isolated attempt and Macchi soon moved on to adapt newer techniques, reassessing the formal stability that characterized his earlier works (Annibaldi 2001; Grove & Macmillan).
His typical mixtures of media and styles displayed a kind of applied experimentalism in which he reconciled the most ingenious sound research with the greatest evocative immediacy; he maintained the same kind of organisational rigour and expressiveness that was to be found in his concert music (Grove & Macmillan).
His film work included the scores to Bandidos (1967), Gangsters '70 (1968), The Assassination of Trotsky (1972), Black Holiday (1973), Mr. Klein (1976), Padre Padrone (1977), Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison (1977), Charlotte (1981), Menuet (1982), The Malady of Love (1986), Salome (1986), and Havinck (1987).
More recently, his compositions Modulo Lunare and Forme Planetarie featured on the soundtrack of Ashim Ahluwalia’s 2012 film, Miss Lovely.
Morte all'orecchio di Van Gogh, for voice acting, harpsichord, magnetic tape and chamber orchestra.
Alteraction, composition for theatres in two parts, based on texts by Antonin Artaud and Deacon Mario.
Venere e il Leone, opera in one act to a libretto by Nicola Badalucco, for soprano and piano.
Ma già dall'orizzonte accenni addio, for soprano, piano, double quartet and chamber orchestra.
Intended for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in the Cloister of San Niccolo at Lido sung by Maria Alide Salvetta .
Venere e il Leone, one-act opera on a libretto by Nicola Badalucco, version for soprano, piano and 14 instruments.
Canzoni Italiane degli anni '20 e '40, scelte e rivisitate da Egisto Macchi, for soprano and piano.
A Matra, a chamber opera in one act to a libretto by Nicola Badalucco, for female voice and piano.
Premiere: Rome, Research Group and musical experimentation, S. Michele, Living the Drying, 1988, Aureliano Female Choir.
Apocalypsis Altera, for children's choir, keyboard, gong, 2 voices, 3 trumpets, 3 horns, 3 trombones and 3 tuba.
Canzoni Italiane degli anni '20 e '40, scelte e rivisitate da Egisto Macchi, version for chorus and orchestra (4 songs).
La Bohème, by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, music by Giacomo Puccini, reworked by Egisto Macchi for 16 instruments and 4 synthesizers (with sound archive league).
Music by Michael Dall, Egisto Macchi, Ennio Morricone, Antonio Poce.
Lazotti Barbara, soprano Daniela Gentile, mezzo-soprano; Carlo Di Giacomo, tenor, Roberto Abbondanca, low.
World premiere: Rome, Sala d'Ercole Palace of the Conservatives in the Capitol, December 29, 1992 for the Voice Institute.