Ludovico Einaudi

Ludovico Einaudi was born on 23 November 1955, in Turin, Italy. He came from a prestigious family; his grandfather, Luigi Einaudi, was President of Italy between 1948 and 1955 and his father, Giulio Einaudi, was a publisher who worked with some renowned authors, such as Italo Calvino and Primo Levi.

Einaudi’s mother, Renata Aldrovandi, used to play piano to him when he was a child. Renata’s father, Waldo Aldrovandi, was a pianist, an opera conductor and music composer who moved to Australia after World War II.

Einaudi’s interest in music was evident from the childhood. As a teenager, he started to compose his own music and used to play folk guitar. This was just the beginning of his music journey.

He received his musical training at Conservatorio Verdi in Milan and got a diploma in composition, in 1982. In the same year, he also undertook an orchestration class by Luciano Berio and won scholarship to the Tanglewood Music Festival.

Einaudi believes that he learned a great deal from Berio who taught him that there is dignity in music. He also collaborated with other musicians like Ballake Sissoko from Mali and Djivan Gasparian from Armenia.

After receiving his diploma in composition, Ludovico Einaudi spent years composing music in traditional forms such as several chamber and orchestral compositions. Soon he received international attention and began performing at venues like Teatro alla Scala, Tanglewood Festival, Lincoln Center, and UCLA Center for Performing Arts.

By mid-1980s, he started to explore for more personal expression in his series of works for dance, multimedia and piano. In 1984, Einaudi collaborated with many in theatre, video, and dance which included compositions for the ‘Sul filo d’Orfeo’.

His other collaborations include ‘Time Out’ in 1988 which was a dance-theatre form created with writer Andrea De Carlo, ‘The Wild Man’ in 1990, and ‘Emperor’ in 1991. Einaudi also collaborated for an opera/ballet which was commissioned by Arena di Verona.

In the mid-1990s, Einaudi started to compose soundtracks for films. He gave music in two films by Michele Sordillo, namely, ‘Da qualche parte in citta’ in 1994, and ‘Acquario’ in 1996. For ‘Acquario’, he won the Grolla d’ror for the best soundtrack.

In 1998, he wrote the score for ‘Giorni dispari’ and composed soundtrack with Treno di panna. Collaborating with Antonello Grimaldi on ‘Un delitto impossibile’ he composed the soundtrack for ‘Fuori del mondo’ in 2000. This soundtrack won him the Echo Klassik award in Germany.

Ludovico Einaudi released his first solo piano album, ‘Le Onde’ on BMG, in 1996. The album received mainstream success, particularly in Italy and UK. It was based on the famous British author, Virginia Woolf’s novel ‘The Waves’.

His next release ‘I Giorni’ had more of a personal touch as it was inspired by his travels in Africa. ‘I Giorni’ was released in 2001 and was featured in a BBC promotion for arts and culture programmes.

In 2004, Einaudi released a live album ‘La Scala Concert 03.03.03’ which was recording of a concert at La Scala opera house held in Italy in 2013.

In 2006, Einaudi released ‘Divenire’ album which was a collaboration of Piano and Orchestra. The album was at the top of iTunes classical chart.

Einaudi took a different direction with his music in 2009 when he released ‘Nightbook’. In this album, Einaudi combined synthesized sounds along with his solo piano playing. More than 35,000 copies of the album were sold in Italy.