About Me

Love at first sight

I grew up in Matera, the city of the Sassi, and I was eight years old when I asked my parents if I could take piano lessons. The teacher, however, was a real disappointment, so much so that after two years I was convinced that the piano was a bore and I had decided to quit.

In the summer of 1994, I happened to be in Perugia with my family while the city was buzzing for the "Umbria Jazz Festival". It was July 17th, a day I will never forget. That evening, the World Cup final, Italy-Brazil, was being played. Italy lost and, to console ourselves, my brother and I decided to go and hear some music. With the defeat still in my eyes, I entered the Morlacchi theater for a concert by a pianist whose name I didn't know: Petrucciani. Just a few notes were enough to erase the disappointment of the soccer match from my mind. Watching him play, I was enchanted: he literally seemed to float on the pedals. I then leaned over the balcony and rested my head on my arm to cover my eyes. It was only when I stopped looking that I truly began to listen. I was thirteen years old and that night I realized I would become a pianist.

It was three in the morning and, as we were walking back home, my brother stopped suddenly. "Look", he told me. He was right there, in front of us, tiny compared to the two guys who were taking care of him. I didn't know what to do. I simply leaned down, knelt at his feet, and asked my new "hero" to sign my shirt. Which he did, smiling. Excited and full of gratitude, I didn't know how to thank him, so, without thinking, I reached out and gave him a pinch on the cheek, a gesture that the Maestro welcomed with a hearty laugh. More than thirty years have passed and that shirt is still framed above one of my pianos in Matera.

The day after that meeting, I ran to my parents and asked them if I could resume piano lessons, but with a different teacher. Since then, I have never stopped playing. The following year I went to hear Petrucciani again in Taranto and after an incredible solo piano performance, I joined him backstage while he was signing autographs. A look was enough, then an embrace that has remained in my heart.

Since that life-changing encounter in Perugia, my life has been a constant journey between the black and white keys. At eighteen, I left Matera to chase that sound, training between Rome and the Netherlands, where I spent intense years at the Conservatories of Den Haag and Rotterdam. It was there, amidst the canals and the northern wind, that my musical identity took shape, leading me in 2008 to be selected as one of the six best young pianists in the prestigious international YPF competition.

Music has become my language and my passport: from awards in Italy and abroad — such as the Luca Flores, Tuscia in Jazz, and La Spezia Jazz Festival — to the stages of Belgium, France, the UK, Germany, Israel, and many others. Throughout this journey, I have had the privilege of collaborating with giants such as Peter Erskine, Branford Marsalis, Eddie Gomez, Jeff Ballard, and Dave Liebman—experiences that have profoundly shaped my musical vision.

While the awards were important milestones, what drives me to sit at the piano every day is an all-encompassing musical vision. I am often described as a multifaceted pianist, perhaps because I strive to bring into my music everything my eyes and ears capture in the world, without feeling bound by any single genre.

Today, my journey has come full circle: after teaching at the conservatories of Benevento and Bari, I have returned to where it all began. I am now the Chair of Jazz Piano at the E. R. Duni Conservatory in Matera, my hometown, where I also coordinate the Jazz Department. Here, I try to pass on to my students the same spark I felt that night over thirty years ago at the Morlacchi Theatre, watching a "little big man" floating above the piano pedals.