Giovanni Allevi, what role did canned tuna play in your career as a musician?
“Basic. In the first period I lived in Milan, I lived in a studio flat and worked as a waiter to pay the rent. Despite the financial difficulties, my main thought was to write music. I had just graduated in composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory and, having no time to cook, I discovered that the quickest way to feed myself was to spill a can of tuna on freshly drained pasta directly into the pot and eat it. For a year it was my usual diet ».
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What does this teach?
«It highlights a maniacality that has always accompanied me in the course of my musical research. I am naturally inclined to focus spasmodically on certain aspects and let go of the rest. Several psychologists have believed that this and my other behaviors are referable to the so-called “Asperger’s Syndrome”, a mild form of autism ».
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When his first album was released we asked ourselves: is it classic, light? Jazz? I dared to baptize her as “stateless”.
“How many years have passed since that definition?”
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More than fifteen.
“In all these years of artistic research it is as if I have never found a home, a landing place, or the protection of the ivory tower. Forced to wander like Ulysses, I have always looked for an edge of eternity in music, the thrill of freedom ».
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Do you think you have opened a new path?
«Said humbly, yes. A counter-current road. Music today is too simple, the mirror of a conformist society. The duty as an artist requires me to recover the complexity of forms. That depth and incomprehensibility that belong to the classical tradition are my dream, my mission. And the result is often misunderstanding ».
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From whom?
“I created a rift. On the one hand, I received the poisonous criticism of some colleagues and on the other hand great recognition. An unwanted break, since I have a mild character, prone to dialogue. But the idea that the classical tradition can and should be innovated has been experienced by the academic world as a sin of treason. Time is proving me right. All the more or less partisan oppositions have not affected my enthusiasm and the affection I receive from the people ».
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An Asteroid named after Giovanni Allevi by NASA, Golden Star for Mozartian Valor by the Mozart Association, full sports halls, appreciation from Gorbachev, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis. Isn’t there a risk of getting your head high?
«No, simply because my intimate desire is not to go hunting for recognition but to face a musical challenge. Writing the “Concerto for violin and orchestra” was like climbing Everest. And once the last note was put, I felt immense joy. This is the thrill of being artists ».
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I have to call her you. Eccentric. Unpredictable But are you there or are you doing it?
“As far as possible, Asperger’s are wrapped in an obsessive repetition of gestures and behaviors. My laughter often comes suddenly, not contextualized. And this complicates everything from a media point of view. It is a psychological reaction to the attempt to have control over life that continually eludes me. Being stateless is probably my original sin. My damnation and my blessing together ».
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Do you love to run, like Forrest Gump?
«By running I delude myself that I am following my restlessness. I’ve been running almost an hour a day for years. My mind becomes clouded and the musical and philosophical ideas emerge that give me relief. I do not do it for health reasons but to escape from the darkness of the soul ».
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Where does it run?
«In Milan on the treadmill, in Ascoli Piceno in the countryside in contact with nature».
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Sometimes he defined himself as “an unsocial loved by social media” …
«Great paradox. I was not born with social media. After the concerts for years I met the fans face to face looking into each other’s eyes, listening to their emotions. Suddenly everything moved to the virtual. But my attitude to listen remained. The human being is a complex and profound reality that contains hell and heaven, this fascinates me. And when people write to me on social media, I am enchanted: I get lost in their descriptions, I love their inner world. And here you understand that the number of followers does not count, because each of them is an infinite and I find it absurd that the contemporary world chases numbers, leaving out the uniqueness of the human being “.
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I saw his trip on Raiplay. How did this television experience go, this journey among street artists?
«Animated by a subversive spirit, I wanted to give a voice to the” stateless “of art and thought, looking for the spark in the depths of their hearts. Perhaps due to the difficult past with the academic world of music, I wanted to show that true art, true culture, comes mainly from the street, from the difficulties of life, and not in protected environments. I discovered, through their stories, that art means innovation, research, overwhelming dedication, regardless of external feedback ».
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The concert performers study, train. She?
«My main activity is composing music, for piano or other instruments. I have always written music without having a piano in front of me, but only pen and paper. So I can think in great detail about all aspects of musical language, without being influenced by manual skills. I developed a procedure for playing the piano without the instrument by reviewing the movements of the fingers in my mind ».
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When did you find out you had a gift?
“Always. This is one of the reasons for my perennial state of mental focus. I prefer fantasy to reality. In everyday life I am totally awkward ».
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You graduated in Philosophy with a thesis entitled “The void in Contemporary Physics” …
«The void is alive and dynamic. There is a subtle plot that binds all events and as Galileo would say, you cannot pick a flower without disturbing a star ».
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A song from the upcoming new album is called “Kiss me again”.
“It’s a solo piano piece I wrote during this pandemic. I tell the conflicting feelings that we are all experiencing. It contains a sense of despair and at the same time the desire for rebirth. The fear for the future and the colors of spring ».
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His pictorial music?
“Interesting definition. Maybe yes. Generally when I listen to or think about music I don’t associate it with images or situations. I am concentrated on the notes of the staff, on the internal structures of the speech ».
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Your relationship with the East?
“Over the past 15 years after starting a career in the US, I have focused my attention above all on the East, because Eastern thought contains elements that for us Westerners can represent salvation. Profound values: silence, waiting, kindness, rituality. In Japan they consider me a kind of hero, especially after the difficult episode I faced during a concert in Kagoshima in 2017. While I was performing I suffered retinal detachment. But instead of stopping and rushing to the hospital, for the love of the audience I kept playing, aggravating the situation. A madness that left me irreversible visual damage. The next day I underwent an emergency operation in Miyazaki. So one of the most famous Kendo teams, martial art of the sword, honored me in an official ceremony, with an honorary sword. As if to say: I was one of them ».
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How are you now?
“I have a permanent reduction in the visual field. When I play I don’t see my left hand but I close my eyes and place my fingers on the imaginary keyboard. Doctors say I should stop playing gigs. I don’t intend to obey ».
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And China?
«A revelation. On the last tour in China, I also went to small countries. And I realized how much unwarranted prejudice the West has towards the Chinese. They are people of surprising kindness and education. When the staff running my business organized an operational meeting, we sat in a circle. Everyone makes his contribution, all on the same level in order to facilitate the circulation of ideas. This assembly arrangement is also frequent at the table. Mutual kindness struck me. “
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The person who will never forget?
“I spent the summer of 2004 in New York knocking on the sacred places of music to get an audition, making the largest collection of doors slammed in my life. I was a guest of Olga, an elderly Italian teacher in New Jersey. In the evening, disappointed, I would return to her house and she, who in life had had everything and lost everything more than once, made me reflect on the fact that the journey is more important than the destination, that only those who dare to fly are flying. When a door finally opened and I had my debut concert in NY, Olga was in the front row to celebrate the leg of a journey that never ends. Now she is gone but her trust in the world has stayed with me ».
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July 7, 2021 (change July 7, 2021 | 23:34)
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