New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi is releasing 'Punta Bianca', the new single from his forthcoming album The Summer Portraits which is out on 31 January via Decca Records/Universal Music Canada. Memories of childhood holidays to a stretch of coast near Bocca di Magra inspired Einaudi's new single 'Punta Bianca', whose central theme slowly swells with a celestial choir.
"In Italy, we finish school at the beginning of June so that was when I moved to the seaside, right till the beginning of September," Einaudi recalls. "It was a long time without shoes! I was completely free to do as I liked, with nobody asking after me. It was amazing to be seven or eight, out walking by yourself - going out in the morning, coming back in the evening. I experienced all the best moments of life, from love to music to food. It was a full physical, emotional experience, year after year."
Einaudi's new album, The Summer Portraits is a song cycle in 13 tracks, in which the personal becomes the universal. Last year, Einaudi took a villa on the Italian island of Elba with his own family, nestled in a forest of pine trees, and found the house to be decorated with 30 or 40 striking oil paintings clearly made by the same hand. He discovered they'd been produced by a woman from Rome who owned the house for some years and painted new scenes every summer. "Everyone has their own version of the summer portraits," he says. "I started to make my own paintings with music. This album is dedicated to all our summers, all our beautiful moments." The oil paintings are a symbol of Einaudi's own impressionistic approach to music: each stroke so carefully chosen; powerful moods created by something delicate.
Einaudi has quietly become one of the most successful musicians in the world. His hauntingly beautiful and evocative music tops the classical charts worldwide. He continues to perform to huge crowds at the world's most prestigious venues.
Born in Turin, Einaudi trained as a classical composer and pianist at the Milan Conservatorio. He studied under Luciano Berio, one of the most important composers of the 20th century avant-garde. After some early prestigious commissions in the classical world Einaudi turned his back on what he regarded as an essentially conservative approach to music to embrace his own enthusiasms, which included African, folk and rock music.
Einaudi's music has become some of the most recognisable in the world through its use in film and advertisements, making him the world's most ubiquitous contemporary composer. He has provided music for numerous films including Shane Meadows' This Is England and the TV sequels This Is England '86 (for which he earned a BAFTA nomination), This Is England '88, and This Is England '90. His music also appears in numerous feature films and trailers, including the JoaquinPhoenix mockumentary I'm Still Here, the French Oscar nominee Untouchables and the multi-award-winning film Mommy by Xavier Dolan, as well as regularly being heard on popular weekly television programmes and high profile adverts. Fans include Nicki Minaj, who walks onstage to his music, Iggy Pop, Tom Hiddleston and Ellie Goulding, to name but a few. Championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James, Einaudi's music has been sampled by Professor Green and remixed by Mogwai and Starkey. In 2016 the pianist performed on a floating platform in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, specially built by Greenpeace, to raise awareness of global warming.
The next few years saw the release of Seven Days Walking - seven albums released in seven months accompanied by live dates in seven cities across the UK including seven sold-out nights at the Barbican in London - which dominated classical charts across the globe. This was followed by soundtracks to Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe-winning films Nomadland and The Father as well as the launch of new podcast mini-series Experience: The Ludovico Einaudi Story, starring celebrated actors, filmmakers and screenwriters such as Russell Crowe, Shane Meadows and Eric Toledano. In 2023, Einaudi received a prestigious invitation from the United Nations for Human Rights to contribute to the Human Right Day concert, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Last October witnessed Einaudi's triumphant return to the UK, captivating audiences in Cardiff, Leeds, Birmingham, and Liverpool. He began 2024 flying to Dubai, Singapore, and a 9-date tour in Australia, including a sold-out residency at the Sydney Opera House.
Winter 2024 saw him play two nights at the London Palladium. This is followed by various European dates before a run of 17 shows in Milan, at Teatro Dal Verme, in December.
Next summer Einaudi makes history by embarking upon the longest continuous headline run ever by a pianist at the Royal Albert Hall, with five consecutive nights in June-July. The record-breaking run of dates at the historic London venue (totalling over 26,000 people) takes place from 30th June to 4th July, and is already sold out.
