CURATION
-
from this page:
by Augmented Matrix
Network Node
-
Name:
Stefano Bollani
-
City/Place:
Rome
-
Country:
Italy
Life & Work
-
Bio:
Born in Milan on December 5, 1972, he started playing the piano at the age of six and made his professional debut at 15. He studied jazz with Luca Flores, Mauro Grossi and Franco D’Andrea. After graduating under Maestro Antonio Caggiula at the Conservatory Luigi Cherubini of Florence in 1993 and a brief experience as session musician in the pop world (with Raf and Jovanotti, among others), he soon became an established jazz musician, playing on the most prestigious stages worldwide (from Umbria Jazz to Montreal International Jazz Festival, from the Town Hall in New York to the Fenice in Venice, from the Barbican in London and Salle Pleyel in Paris to the Scala in Milan). He has also worked with great musicians including Richard Galliano, Phil Woods, Lee Konitz, Chick Corea, with whom he recorded live Orvieto (ECM, 2011), as well as Gato Barbieri, Bill Frisell, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, Bobby McFerrin, Sol Gabetta, Fred Hersch, Martial Solal, Chano Dominguez, Chucho Valdés, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Uri Caine, Diego Schissi, Igudesman & Joo, Miroslav Vitous, Aldo Romano, Jimmy Cobb, Roy Haynes, Michel Portal, Luis Bacalov, Riz Ortolani…
Among the milestones in his career, the crucial collaboration with his mentor Enrico Rava, uninterrupted since 1996. At Rava’s side, he has performed hundreds of concerts and recorded as many as 13 CDs. The most recent include: Tati (ECM, 2005), in a trio with Paul Motian on drums (CD of the year for French Académie du jazz), The Third Man (ECM, 2007, the best CD of the year for American magazine “Allaboutjazz” and for Italian “Musica Jazz”), and New York Days (ECM, 2008), in a quintet with Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier and Paul Motian (CD of the year for “Musica Jazz”).
He was rated best new talent in 1998 by the referendum of the “Musica Jazz” critics; in that year, as leader of his band L’orchestra del Titanic, he paid tribute to Italian music of the 1930s and 1940s with the record-show Abbassa la tua radio (with many important Italian singers and musicians).
Over the years he has worked with experimental and “cross-border” musicians both on stage and in recordings (Hector Zazou, Giovanni Sollima, Elliot Sharp, Zeena Parkins, Sainhko Namcythclack); he has also played his piano for singers such as Elio e le storie tese, Johnny Dorelli, Luciano Pavarotti, Andrea Bocelli, and in particular the Italian pop star Irene Grandi, with whom he signed the album Irene Grandi e Stefano Bollani (Carosello, 2012).
Some of his works are rather unconventional, such as La gnosi delle fanfole, where he set surreal poems by Fosco Maraini to music together with singer-songwriter Massimo Altomare (1998), and the album of Scandinavian songs Gleda (Stunt Records, 2005), recorded in Denmark with Jesper Bodilsen on double bass and Morten Lund on drums, two musicians with whom he has been playing in a close-knit trio since 2004.
He recorded four CDs in his name for prestigious French Label Bleu: Les fleurs bleues (2002), a tribute to writer Raymond Queneau, recorded in trio with Scott Colley and Clarence Penn; the solo-CD Småt småt (2003), ranked as one of the top ten jazz albums of the year by English magazine “Mojo”; Concertone (2004), a work for jazz trio and symphonic orchestra with Paolo Silvestri, who arranged and directed the Orchestra Regionale Toscana; and the double album I visionari (2006) with his new quintet plus Mark Feldman, Paolo Fresu and Petra Magoni as guests.
He created Vivere Jazz Festival in Fiesole (FI) and was its artistic director from 2005 to 2007.
His more recent productions are Big Band! (Verve, 2013) with the NDR Big Band of Hamburg directed and arranged by Geir Lysne, awarded with the 2013 ECHO Preis; Joy In Spite Of Everything (ECM, 2014), CD of the year for the magazine “Musica Jazz”; Sheik Yer Zappa (Decca black, 2014), a live recording to honour Frank Zappa’s music; Arrivano gli alieni (Decca black, 2015), his debut as singer-songwriter; Napoli Trip (Decca, 2016) with many musicians including Daniele Sepe, Manu Katché and Jan Bang; Mediterraneo (ACT, 2017), a live show recorded in Berlin with Jesper Bodilsen, Morten Lund, Vincent Peirani and some members of the Berliner Philharmoniker, with arrangements by Geir Lysne.
In May 2018, he released Que Bom, his first album of his label Alobar. Consisting of original tunes recorded in Rio, it features Caetano Veloso and João Bosco among others.
The second album by Alobar is Piano Variations on Jesus Christ Superstar (2020), a tribute to the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
His curiosity has often made him a moderator/interviewer on stage with writers and thinkers such as Rupert Sheldrake, Corrado Malanga, Mauro Biglino, Anne Givaudan, Igor Sibaldi.
PUBLISHING
In 2006, publisher Baldini e Castoldi Dalai printed his novel La sindrome di Brontolo.
In January 2013, Mondadori published his book Parliamo di musica. In 2015, again Mondadori published Il monello, il guru, l’alchimista e altre storie di musicisti.
He was made a character called “Paperefano Bolletta” appearing in three comic strips of the weekly publication “Topolino” and was officially appointed its ambassador.
In 2017, Trigono Edizioni published Dialoghi tra alieni, conversazioni su universi vicini e lontani signed by Bollani together with Mauro Biglino, Anne Givaudan and Igor Sibaldi.
He wrote the foreword for books by George Martin, Tom Robbins, Robert Anton Wilson, Ricardo Tristano Tuls and others.
RADIO AND TV
In 2005, he was a permanent guest in the Rai 1 TV show Meno siamo meglio stiamo by and with Renzo Arbore, one of the most popular Italian TV presenters of all time.
Together with poet-author-director David Riondino and saxophonist-composer Mirko Guerrini, he was the creator, author and host of the music show Dottor Djembè, broadcast on Radio Rai 3 from 2006 to 2012 (winning the awards “Premio Microfono d’argento” in 2007, “Premio Satira Politica di Forte dei Marmi” and “Volterra Gusto” in 2010). That experience first led to the book-CD Lo Zibaldone del Dottor Djembè (Baldini Castoldi Dalai, 2008), an ironic mockery of the world of “high” culture, and then to the TV special Buonasera Dottor Djembè in three episodes created and broadcast on Rai 3 in June 2010.
He has been the author of Radio Rai 3 programs’ jingles since January 2009.
In October 2011, he was the creator, author and host of the six-episode TV show Sostiene Bollani, broadcast on Rai 3. By his side, the very famous Italian comedian Caterina Guzzanti and his friends-musicians Jesper Bodilsen and Morten Lund of his Danish Trio, and many guests. The show was awarded with the “Ideona” prize of ANART, television and radio authors association.
A second edition was once again broadcast on Rai 3 in 2013.
In autumn 2016, he created the seven-episode late-night Rai 1 TV show L’importante è avere un piano, accompanied by brilliant actress Valentina Cenni in the role of a sleep fairy and by many international musician guests.
He took part in 2013 Sanremo Festival as special guest with Caetano Veloso.
In January 2020, he officially inaugurated the year of Matera European Capital of Culture on Rai 1 TV with multifaceted actor-singer-director Gigi Proietti, who has enjoyed highest popularity in Italy for over 50 years.
THEATRE
In theatre, he has worked with many artists, from Banda Osiris (in the show Guarda che luna!, 2002-2004, together with Rava, Gianmaria Testa and others, and in Primo piano, 2005-2006), to renowned Italian actors such as Claudio Bisio, Maurizio Crozza and in particular Lella Costa (for whom he composed the music for three plays, Alice: una meraviglia di paese, Amleto and Ragazze, all directed by Giorgio Gallione).
He shared the stage with prominent people from the world of art tout court such as Fernando Arrabal and of contemporary dance such as Roberto Bolle, Raffaella Giordano and Mauro Bigonzetti (who created a ballet on his Concertone for Staatstheater Stuttgart).
He composed the music for Antigone by Cristina Pezzoli, performed at Teatro Greco of Siracusa in 2013, and for Wonderland by Daniele Ciprì, produced by Teatro Stabile of Bolzano in 2016.
An honorary member of the Italian Association of Pataphysics, he is co-author of and actor in the play created together with his wife Valentina Cenni, La regina dada.
CLASSICAL MUSIC
In the field of classical music, he has performed as soloist with symphonic orchestras such as Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Concertgebouworkest of Amsterdam, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de Lyon, Filarmonica della Scala of Milan, Santa Cecilia of Rome with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kristjan Järvi, Daniel Harding, Antonio Pappano, Gianandrea Noseda, Leonard Slatkin, James Conlon, Jan Latham-Koenig (with whom he recorded Concert Champêtre by Poulenc for the English label AVIE Records together with the Orchestra Filamornica ‘900 del Regio di Torino), and in particular Riccardo Chailly, with whom he recorded Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F in Leipzig, released in September 2010 by Decca Italia and listed in the general rankings (Platinum disc, selling over 70,000 copies).
In 2012, he recorded the CD Sounds of the 30s (including Concerto in G by Maurice Ravel), once again with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Maestro Chailly.
In 2013, George Gershwin – Live alla Scala was released, a DVD recorded at Scala in Milan that includes Concerto in F directed by Chailly.
He composed three concerts for piano and orchestra: Concertone (2004), Concerto Azzurro (2017) and Concerto Verde (2019).
BRAZIL
In recent times, his bond with South America has grown stronger. After creating the (Gold Record awarded) album Carioca with outstanding Brazilian musicians, followed by a live DVD, in December 2007 he was, only after Antonio Carlos Jobim, the second musician in Brazilian history to play a grand piano in a favela of Rio de Janeiro.
He has worked with many Brazilian artists, notably Hamilton de Holanda, with whom he recorded the live album O Que Será (ECM, 2013), ranked among the best CDs of the year by American magazine “Downbeat”. He has also played with Chico Buarque, Egberto Gismonti, Marcos Sacramento, Zé Renato, Monica Salmaso, Nilze Carvalho, Ná Ozzetti, Jaques Morelenbaum, Toninho Horta, and the band Casuarina.
PRIZES AND AWARDS
He was rated the best new talent in 1998 by the referendum of “Musica Jazz” critics.
In 2003, he received the Neapolitan award “Premio Carosone”, named after the artist whom he had dedicated a brief book-essay to in 2002, L’America di Renato Carosone (Elleu editore). One year later, Japanese magazine “Swing Journal” gave him the “New Star Award” for foreign emerging talents, bestowed for the first time to a non-American musician. He published five CDs for Japanese label Venus Records as leader of his trio with Ares Tavolazzi on double bass and Walter Paoli on drums. (In one of them, Ma l’amore no, 2006, he also performed as singer).
In 2006, “Musica Jazz” rated him musician of the year, and his Piano Solo (ECM) CD of the year.
In 2007, American jazz magazine “Downbeat” Critics Poll ranked him eighth best international rising star and third best young pianist.
The critics of “Allaboutjazz” magazine of New York ranked him among the five most important musicians of the year, next to stars like Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins.
In December, he was given the European critic award “European Jazz Prize – Best European Jazz Musician of the Year” in Vienna.
In 2008, the Region of Tuscany awarded him with the “Gonfalone d’argento”.
In 2009, at North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands, he won the “Paul Hacket Award”.
In 2010, he was appointed honorary doctor by Berklee College of Music in Boston.
The same year, he received the “Capri Global Artist Award” and was rated musician of the year by the “Musica Jazz” critics.
In 2011, he won the “Fiorentini nel mondo” prize and the “Los Angeles Excellence Award” for Italian culture in the world.
In 2012, he received the “Milano per la musica” prize. The same year, he was ranked seventh best pianist by “Downbeat” Critics Poll.
In Germany, he won the 2014 “Trier Jazz Award”. The same year, Joy In Spite Of Everything was rated CD of the year by “Musica Jazz”.
In 2016, he was awarded the title of “Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic”.
In 2019, he was conferred honorary citizenship by the city of Naples.
Contact Information
-
Management/Booking:
Gábor Simon Konzertagentur
GENERAL MANAGEMENT, COMPOSITIONS & COMMISSIONS, BOOKING G/A/S & BE/NE/LUX
[email protected]
+49 175 2488831
www.gaborsimonkonzert.de
Mauro Diazzi
Booking Italy
[email protected]
+39 059 7877010
+39 335 7243509
www.maurodiazzi.com
Luciano Bertrand
Booking France
[email protected]
+39 329 235 3329
Béla Simon
Booking Hungary Classical Music
[email protected]
+36 30 588 6547
www.microcosmosartists.com
MWI – Music Works International
Booking rest of the world
Luigi Sidero
[email protected]
+393284187943
Katherine McVicker
[email protected]
www.musicworksinternational.com
Zebaki
Press office
[email protected]
+393387368361
[email protected]
+393421659695
Roberto Lioli
Technical manager
[email protected]
+39 335 5616258
Clips (more may be added)
We use the mathematics of the small world phenomenon to transform the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all... (Wolfram explains how above)
This Integrated Global Creative Economy uncoils from a sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix...
Great culture is great power.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
Our Matrix was conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found us (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.comAcross the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Wolfram MathWorld
Ex Terra Brasilis
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Roberto Mendes
Luciano Calazans
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
RÁDIO MATRIX