Recordings Coming to Life
I presented new material in an intimate setting, for the very first time to an audience.
My invitation to play a show at the Premio Riccione Teatro (the most prestigious Italian award for theater writing) was the perfect chance to present my unreleased music in a beautiful setting, to a wonderful, attentive audience.
Since the Mighty Oaks break started at the end of summer 2022, I’ve been mostly focusing on studio work like composing for film, co-writing sessions, producing for others and composing for my solo project. My studio has become a safe space for music creation, where I have complete freedom to dive deep into the process, to learn, make mistakes, start over, regardless of genre, format, and commercial demand. When I sit at the piano I try to have no expectation, no prejudice, no framework. In a way, playing the piano for me has become more similar to writing Julia Cameron’s famous morning pages or a simple meditation practice.
As much as I miss touring and playing shows, I never really conceive my own music with the live performance in mind, as that can also represent a limitation: when you turn any composition into a performance you inevitably run into real-world consideration like the venue kind and size, the available equipment, the number of musicians on stage. Ultimately, I believe a performance should be much more than a mere execution of the piece. These were all questions that I tried to answer in preparation for the show in Riccione — yes, I really think about this kind of stuff a lot :)
NUTS AND BOLTS - The pre-production for the show has been an interesting learning process. First of all, I knew that I wanted to have on stage something more than just the piano. Indeed I wanted to get away from the idea of a piano monologue in favour of a musical conversation, a concept that’s been in my mind for a while now and that is shaping a lot of what I do and how I do it, at the moment. So the idea was to create a soundscape that would represent a counterpart to the piano and at the same time a sonic context for my piano performance. I started implementing all this on my laptop but soon realized that I actually didn’t want to have my laptop on stage, because it was becoming a very distracting presence. So I opted for a rather small but comprehensive setup made of effect pedals, a loop station, a synthesizer and a microphone to record my own voice.
My final setup was actually a bit different as I used a different reverb and replaced the synth with an iPad for the generation of additional sounds, but the essential structure was the same: on one side of the conversation the piano, on the other side my soundscapes made of voice, piano and synth drones, all through the loop station and the reverb. This way, although alone on stage, I could structure my show as a conversation between 2 musical entities. Bingo!
It was not my first time playing in Riccione, but this show has been unique, leaving me with a strong desire to bring my music to the stage again.
Last but not least, being completely immersed in the theater world for a few days, I tried to absorb as much information and inspiration as I could from this mysterious neighboring artistic field. I received so many insights about what I do and how I do it and how music relates to other performative arts like theater, where it overlaps, where it differs and what it can borrow from it. So much input for a single show!! :)
Here are a few more impressions of the show by the amazing Beatrice Imperato.
Alright, thank you so much for your precious attention!
Substack is an important place for me, where my need for long-form in-depth writing finds an outlet away from the hectic timing of social media.
If you like what you read it would mean the world to me if you recommended this to a friend or two. Word-of-mouth still moves mountains. :)
I’ll soon have new music and new collaborations to announce. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile you can find my music and videos here.
Much love,
Claudio