Giovanni Allevi bows low over the piano in deep concentration, his fingers flying across the keyboard at almost super-human speed. His attire is unusual for a classical pianist and composer: a black t-shirt, black jeans, and black Chuck Taylor tennis shoes. His hair is a wild mop– like that of Jimi Hendrix.
Giovanni Allevi, young, hip, and charismatic, is almost unknown in the United States. He has been variously called in the world press, “the Italian genius of piano,” “the new Mozart,” and “a modern and free spirit.”
Allevi says he wants to make “direct and immediate contact to the spirit of the times.” In that sense, the young composer aspires to make classical music “pop” again. Allevi contends, “the classical composer of today must come out of his ivory tower and be able to find a direct contact to the people of today. At the same time, one must maintain an umbilical cord that ties the composer to the great European classical tradition.”
Allevi’s recent album entitled Joy is a series of intricate piano solos. His music sounds improvised, like that of Keith Jarrett, but Allevi says his music is rigorously composed, note by note. He goes on to say, “the piano is a gigantic prairie, a gigantic symphonic orchestra, available to my fingers.” In this spirit, Allevi famously rehearses his performances in his head, as opposed to on the keyboard– like a brilliant, cerebral chess master.
In person, Allevi is fragile and soft-spoken with an innocent, almost childlike enthusiasm for his art. One gets the impression he inhabits a permanent creative space where every breath, every gesture, and every word, is at the service of his art.
I interviewed Allevi on his recent trip to the United States.
How has your visit been to the United States?
I am on tour, for my international piano solo tour. I have been in Japan, in the north of Europe, and now in the U.S.A. I had my debut in Carnegie Hall in New York a short time ago [October 9th], and now I am in Los Angeles; I will be in Washington and also in San Francisco; then I’ll go back to Italy.
So you go from Carnegie Hall to the rain in Los Angeles?
Yeah [laughs]; I am so emotional to stay here in Los Angeles, because I am a great fan of the writer Charles Bukowski, that I have always read, so it’s very strange for me to pass in the same streets and in the same places as Bukowski.
I like Charles Bukowski too.
He is very, very extreme; he writes about a strange experience and that everyone has to have, I think. For an artist it’s very important to live in the present. It’s my dream is to transform the present– what I live now– in music, and to speak to people today through the notes and the music.
Tell me about Carnegie Hall. Was it a good experience?
It was an amazing experience. It was sold out, and there was a line outside the concert hall. I played all my own compositions by the solo piano, and so I felt great affection from the public, from the audience; a great attention for my music… I was anxious in the first moment, and then after the first clap I was in paradise.
Do you still get a panic attack before a performance?
Yeah.
Do you make it work for you?
Del panico. I suffer of panic attacks, but I decided to consider panic like a blessing, not something negative, but the– come si dice incontro?– the meeting of the creative energies inside of us. So, three years ago, when I was coming back home from my China tour, I had, in front of my house in Milan, my first panic attack, and after a few minutes I was going into an ambulance– going straight to the hospital, and in that ambulance, to stop my fear, I let a sweet melody come into my head. I called it “Panic,” and that melody was the beginning of a new work– a new composition work– that is on my album of solo piano, called Joy; in fact the brano (piece) “Panic” is the first composition. Panic, the anxiety– is one dimension of the human being that the artist has to come through, and to transform into music.
You’re in good company! You know Lawrence Olivier, for example…
Yeah, yeah! [Laughs.] It is important to be afraid. I don’t want to feel strong. I have to feel like a human being. If I live my fragility, I can transform my fragility into strength. And I want to present on the stage the human being, with all my fragility, with all my difficulties, but also with all my joy of life.
What do you want the audience to feel when you’re playing?
I don’t want the audience to tell me that I’m– bravo, come si dice?– good to play, no. I want that the audience feel an emotion. And when I compose my music and I play the piano, I put in all my passion, and that passion creates the consequences, creates emotions in the audience… and when that happens, I am happy.
You don’t want the audience to think about you, but to think about the music and the feeling it creates?
Sì, sì. The emotion– the final emotion– is the most important dimension, and there is no difference between me and my music, and being on the stage. So, if people love my music, it is to love me, so I feel very happy.
Describe your original music to someone in the United States who is not familiar with it.
Okay, I can try to– definire, come si dice?– define it, that is, technically define my music: it is contemporary classic music; not jazz, because I do not improvise. First of all, I score the music. In the beginning, I compose the music in my head, then I repeat that music hundreds of times in my head. I have problems of relationships with other human beings, when I’m thinking about the music [laughs]. And after, I write the music down as a score, for a piano solo or for a symphony orchestra; and after that, I play it on the stage.
So your description is…
I use classical forms in composing music, such as studio, sonata, symphonia, concerto per pianoforte e orchestra, that are classical, the forms that are the heart of the European tradition. But I put inside those classical forms the rhythms of today; so, for that reason, I could define my music as contemporary classic music, but it is only a definition. I think that my music is– come si dice “un grido d’amore”?– a cry of love.
Are there contemporary musicians that have influenced you?
Of course… I’ve passed all my life studying composition. I have a degree in composition from the Milan Conservatory of Music, and I grew up studying the European composers, like Schoenberg, Stockhausen of the dodecaphonic tradition, but I loved also the minimalism– the American minimalism– of Terry Riley and Philip Glass… so I decided to find a new way, a new European way to distance myself from the dodecaphonic experience and to try to compose music that would describe something beautiful, something joyful… something colored… that I would compose music that can be – come si dice “vivace”?– vibrant music, full of life, not only– serena, distesa– not only calm, something like everyone of us inside, with panic, with passion, with conflict… okay?
Are you familiar with Steve Reich?
Yeah, yeah, yeah– Steve Reich, Teri Riley, and Philip Glass; these are my points of reference.
What direction will you go in the future?
I published for several years only piano solo CDs, but in the recent period, I decided to give my energy to a great orchestral symphonic project that culminated in a concert in the Arena di Verona in Milan earlier this year… in which I had twelve thousand people and a great symphonic orchestra coming from all the world, and they played my compositions with me conducting. So, now I am involved in the piano solo tour and another project with a symphonic orchestra.
Thank you for your time and welcome to the United States!
And thank you! I am so emotional because it is my very first American interview!
