Stefano Battaglia

Born in Milan on 31/08/65. He begins studying piano at age seven, receiving his diploma in 1984 at Milan with the highest grades and honors. At the same time he studies instrument and composition with maestro Vittorio Trama.
As classical concertist he has participated in numerous italian and european reviews proposing a repertory of Bach and the " Fitzwilliam Virginal Book", a collection of compositions from the 500-600s of english virginalists. He was awarded at the 1986 “J.S. Bach Festival” in Dusseldorf as best young interpreter of the year, proposing mostly baroque repertory (Bach, Scarlatti and Haendel) or modern (Hindemith, Boulez, Ligeti); in 1991 he performs as soloist in the Juvenile European Orchestra in Barcelona.
In the jazz curcuit he was awarded best talent in 1988 by Musica Jazz magazine. He has collaborated with all of the best italian musicians and many foreign artists like T. Oxley, B. Phillips, S. Swallow, A.Romano, L. Konitz, K.Wheeler, B.Elgart, D. Pifarely, D.Redman, J.Clayton, R. Galliano, T. Moreno, P. Favre, M. Johnson, M. Godard, M. Ducret T:Stanko, A. Jormin, B. Chevillon.He alos took part in the first Grande Orchestra Nazionale of the Jazz Musician’s Association in 1991/91.
He has participated in many important national music events among which four editions of Umbria Jazz, four editions of Elusone Jazz, various editions in Bolzano, Trento, Milan, Siena, Rome, Turin, Ravenna, three editions at Rocella Ionica, etc., and in various international festivals like: Gineva, Lugano, Le Mans, Algeria, Paris, Velden, Frankfurt, Berlin, Middelheim, Chicago, New York, Bruxelles, Madrid, Budapest, Grenoble, Tunisia, Tel Aviv, Valencia, Montreal. In 1977 he was awarded best young european pianist by the National Radio in Bruxelles and the year after as best emerging musician.
He is teacher at the “Siena Jazz” summer workshops from 1988 and in the Advanced Level and Professional Formation courses. for jazz music in Siena.
In Siena he coordinates the Permanent Lab for Musical Research since 1996, a space dedicated to experimentation, and for meeting with musicians with diverse experiences, for which he created Theatrum, an orchestra which he directs. In 2003 the orchestra Attualmente releases its fourth Cd, Originaria, and together with his solo performances, he continues his research in the dialogue between percussion instruments evident in his collaborations with the percussionists Pierre Favre (album Omen), Tony Oxley (the cd Explore was voted in the USA as one of the top ten european recordings in the last 10 years) and Michele Rabbia (Stravagario I and II). Continues his twenty year research in the classical trio formula (presently with Paolino Della Porta and Fabrizio Sferra), also founding Triosonic with double bass player Giovanni Maier and percussionist Michele Rabbia. He creates Atem with the violinist Dominique Pifarely and percussionist Michele Rabbia which alternately hosts different musicians (Vincent Cortois, Michel Godard, Bruno Chevillon). Has released more than sixty cds , half as leader and ten for piano.
In 1997 the Swiss german radio (DRS2) dedicated a series of transmissions to him culminating in the recording of five cds (Swiss Radio Tapes) pubblished by Splasc(h).
In 1991 the label Symphonia recorded some solo performances in italian churches producing a series of six cds called Esalogia dell’abside.
In 2000 he composes music for 56 sonets for Orpheus by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, transposed in music from 1990. Has undertaken a series of recordings with a trio dedicated to the great jazz repertory called The Book of Jazz.
In 2001 his album, Il cerchio interno, is considered one of ten albums Choc de la musique by Radio France.
In 2003 his solo piano concert Signum, in the Auditorium di Madrid was nominated “best solo performance 2001” by Radio Espana Nacional.
The same year, the National General Secretary, in collaboration with radio RAI 3 dedicates to the pianist a live recording of the concerts Musica Salva, Musica Centripeta and Danze Sacre from the Paolina Chapel in Rome’s Quirinale. In 2003, in collaboration with the painter Gabriele Amadori, he experiments with sound, color and gesture, culminating with a series of action paintings throughout Europe. In 2004 he elaborates, with his trio, The Book of Songs, a vast program aimed at covering the evolution of the song form from the medieval to the present.
Creates the project EXILIO, a series of original compositions based on and inspired by musical traditions from countries, cultures and ethnical groups whose genetic patrimony and history for social, politics or religious reasons, embraces the journey as an existential choice, escape, research and discovery, creating through an osmosis of languages, new contaminated cultural civilizations.
The same year he studies Alec Wilder’s music, around which he creates a monographic program regarding his vast production and working on his vast patrimony of melodies (art songs, popular songs).
In 2004 he begins to collaborate with the german recording label ECM, which will release a double cd with his trio called Raccolto as well as an opera of thirty compositions for three different formations as homage to the great poet PierPaolo Pasolini for the thirty year anniversary of his death.

Stefano Battaglia

International Summer Jazz Workshop
Piano
Combo class

Permanent Laboratories for Musical Research

http://www.stefanobattaglia.com