Alessandra Celletti is one of the best Italian pianists without any doubt. For her it is “normal” to play scores by Erik Satie or Philip Glass, without disdaining Mozart or the great classical composers, or make contemporary experimental electronic music with Hans Joachim Roedelius and in Italy with Gianni Maroccolo.
“The most beautiful secret of Italian Music” (La Repubblica magazine). Alessandra Celletti, pianist, composer and singer comes from a purely classical background, but her musical and artistic experiences multiply with sudden deviations in a very personal music world; away from labels, her unique and irreplaceable center of gravity is the piano”.
Her passion for Satie was born in a curious way, as she explains.
“My relationship with Erik Satie is something unique, almost symbiotic, a deep bond that defies the boundaries of time and space. He was my first great musical love, and since then his presence has never left me. There is not a concert in which I do not play at least one of his compositions, even if only as an “encore”. I was 11 years old and in my first year at the conservatory when I met him as a “punishment”.
I didn’t like studying scales and doing exercises very much, and so my teacher, to punish me, assigned me a “minor” author for the end-of-year recital. The other students in the course would have performed simple but prestigious pages by Chopin or Mozart — I, instead, would have performed some excerpts from “Parade” by this Frenchman of little importance: Erik Satie.
Since then, punishments have become something very interesting for me, if not downright fun. What struck me immediately about Satie is his profound lightness, or, to put it the other way around, his light depth. An apparent contradiction that magically finds its way into his art. His compositions, often seemingly simple, hide an emotional and intellectual complexity that never ceases to amaze me”.
This year marks the centenary of Erik Satie’s passing, and Alessandra has decided to celebrate it with a special work.
To realize this project Alessandra has decided to use crowdfunding as a financing tool, and in Second Life she will do two presentation concerts: an introductory one, approximately on June 2nd, and one to conclude the fundraising campaign before June 15th.
Alessandra decided to celebrate Erik Satie by creating a project that includes concerts, the recording of an album with his most beautiful compositions: Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, alongside some of her own compositions that somewhat connect to his style and poetry. She also composed an unreleased track that gives the entire project its name: Satie Mon Amour is a tender and melancholic waltz, perhaps with a touch of irony.
Then, for for the final concert, we will all see together in Second Life an animation video created by Paola Luciani, a video artist I admire greatly for her refined creativity.
A great project and two exceptional musicians in a virtual world. What more could you want? Very romantic.
We will soon communicate the locations, times and definitive dates for the two events.
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