Roberto Cacciapaglia

Roberto Cacciapaglia was born in Milan. He graduated in composition from the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory of his city, where he also studied conducting and electronic music. Over the years he worked at the studio of Phonology of Rai and collaborated with the CNR (National Research Council) in Pisa where he studied computer applications in the field of music.
Composer and pianist, he is a key protagonist on the international scene of the most innovative music, his compositions blending electronic experimental music with the classical tradition. For many years he has been researching the powers of sound, leading towards a music beyond frontiers expressed through deep emotional contact.

“QUARTO TEMPO – 10th Anniversary Edition” – Ten years after the release of the historic album “Quarto tempo”, essential work which has opened the collaboration with the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra, Roberto Cacciapaglia launches an inedited and extraordinary version of it.
In addition to the 12 original tracks, the double CD will include also the solo piano interpretation of each piece and an inedited version of “Il Ragazzo che Sognava Aeroplani”.
The album is released on the 3rd of November 2017.

“Celebration Tour 2018” is the new Worldwide Tour, started in Moscow – Russia – with 6 dates through Siberia, and then Italy, U.S. and China.

“EARTH DAY 2017” – On the 22nd of April 2017, the Maestro Roberto Cacciapaglia opens and celebrates the “Earth Day 2017”, playing a concert in Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

“ATLAS” – his latest album released on 25th November 2016 by Believe Digital – is a charming collection of 28 tracks: the greatest music by the composer enriched by two extraordinary inedited tracks – “Reverse” and “Mirabilis” – and a tribute to David Bowie: an instrumental version of “Starman”, Requiem to his memory.

“TREE OF LIFE” contains the “Tree of Life Suite”, the Music specially composed for the Milan Expo night show of the Tree of Life – EXPO 2015.
Released on 26th May 2015 by Believe Digital, it went straight to number one of the iTunes classical music charts, where it stayed at the top for many months. It was performed in concert with the Milan La Scala Theatre Academy Orchestra at the Open Air Theatre to celebrate EXPO 2015.

“ALPHABET”, recorded in the Sala Verdi of the Milan Conservatory, was released on 28th January 2014 by Decca Records – Universal Music, and was performed in concert in the Hall of the Eight Columns in the Royal Palace of Milan. It stayed at the top of the iTunes classical music charts for several weeks.
Three CDs are the fruit of his long artistic collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: “QUARTO TEMPO” (Universal Music – 2007); “CANONE DEGLI SPAZI” (Universal Music – 2009); and “TEN DIRECTIONS” (Sony Music – 2010).

Roberto Cacciapaglia has huge successes with his live performances in Italy and abroad. A testimony is his tour in Russia, with concerts in Moscow and San Petersburg which received an extraordinary reception by the Russian public, and the following concerts in Barcelona, Bratislava, Ankara Piano Festival and Istanbul, where he taught several seminars and workshops at the Turkish Music State Conservatory.
Frequent guest of “La Milanesiana” by Elisabetta Sgarbi, he perform several concerts, like the one with the Nobel Prize for literature Derek Walcott, and “Mente Radiosa”, composed for the evening with Rita Levi Montalcini, Nobel Prize for Medicine.

In 1986 the prestigious Ricordi Edition published his opera in two acts “GENERAZIONI DEL CIELO”, first performed in the Metastasio Theatre in Prato and subsequently at the Lingotto Theatre in Turin. The same year he composed “LAMENTAZIONI DI GEREMIA”, commissioned by the International Festival of Tel Aviv. Then in 1988 at the Ateforum Festival in Ferrara he performed “In C” with Terry Riley, the manifesto composition of minimalist music. The piece was recently published and distributed in Russia together with the first release of “TRANSARMONICA” (1988). Other pieces from those years are “AUREA CARMINA” (1988), commissioned by the Santa Cecilia Academy of Rome, “IL SEGRETO DELL’ALBA” (1989), a ballet-pantomime commissioned by the City Theatre of Bologna, “UN GIORNO X” (1990), a video opera performed at the Milan Conservatory with the popular Italian singer Gianna Nannini and the Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali, and the musical fable “LE MILLE E UNA NOTTE” (1991), performed at the Berlin Festival “Berliner Festspiele” and subsequently at the “Spoleto Festival”.

Fruit of his all-round experimentation are the albums “ANGELUS ROCK” (1992), “ARCANA” (2001), “TEMPUS FUGIT” (2003), and “INCONTRI CON L’ANIMA” (2005).

“SONANZE” (1974), his first recording and the first quadrapohonic LP released in Italy was produced by Rolf Ulrich Kaiser. The head of the German record company “OHR” put the maestro in contact with German groups like POPOL VUH, with whom he performed in concert, TANGERINE DREAM, and WALLENSTEIN, all with the same music company. Four years later he produced “SEI NOTE IN LOGICA” (1978), a music score for voices, orchestra and computer, a turning point and an exploration of the minimalist sphere.

Roberto Cacciapaglia performs his own compositions in the most prestigious theatres and most famous institutions in Italy and in the world, among others: Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Conservatory in Milan, Accademia di Santa Cecilia of Rome, Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Festival in Tel Aviv, Festival of Campinas in Brazil, Passatge de la Pau in Barcelona, Spoleto Festival, Lingotto in Turin, Milan Cathedral, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Teatro degli Arcimboldi in Milan, World Event Abu Dhabi, Teatro Carignano in Turin, Maiden Tower in Baku in Azerbaijan, Teatro Bibiena in Mantua, Ravello Festival, Teatro Morlacchi in Perugia, International House of Music in Moscow, Belozerskih Palace in St. Petersburg, Conservatory in Istanbul, Palazzo Reale in Milan, Auditorium of the Slovak National Radio in Bratislava, Ankara Piano Festival, Teatro del Giglio in Lucca, Open Air theatre – Expo Milano 2015, Jaani Kirki’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Child Philharmonia in Ekaterinburg, Philharmonia Triumph in Perm, State Institute of Arts in Krasnoyarsk, Energy Cultural Space in Novosibirsk, Teatro Cristallo in Bozen, Teatro Colosseo in Turin, Teatro Duse in Bologna, Teatro Verdi in Florence and many others.

Roberto Cacciapaglia is also founder of the Educational Music Academy with the aim of giving a voice to young musical talents, composers and performers, pianists and musicians in order to give shape to their projects and to achieve professional mastery in their works.