Roberto Esposito
"A pianist with remarkable versatility and musicality of the highest level"
- Maestro Roberto Cappello
"Music for heart, brain and ears"
- pianist Stefano Bollani
Italian pianist and composer Roberto Esposito is a versatile musician whose work moves naturally between classical music, jazz and improvisation.
Born in Tricase, Puglia, Esposito studied piano with Roberto Cappello at the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma, graduating with highest honours, while also studying jazz. He later continued his training in Hungary with Zoltán Szigmond and in 2009 received a scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Among his early successes were Best Pianist prizes at Sound Crossings in Turin and the Tour Music Fest in Rome.
Esposito has performed throughout Europe, the United States and the Caribbean, including at Umbria Jazz. In 2016, he was invited to take part in a performance of Philip Glass’s complete 20 Etudes at Teatro Regio di Parma, performing alongside Glass and pianists Anton Batagov and Jenny Lin. He returned to the project the following year at Rome’s Auditorium Parco della Musica, where the performers included Glass, Dennis Russell Davies, Maki Namekawa and Viviana Lasaracina.
Throughout his career, Esposito has worked with musicians from across the classical, jazz and popular music worlds, including Fabrizio Bosso, Julian Mazzariello, Katia Ricciarelli, Giuliano Sangiorgi, Tosca, Ron and Renzo Rubino. He has also opened concerts for Enrico Rava, Dado Moroni, Alvin Queen and Tuck & Patti.
Esposito’s music reflects the same breadth of influences as his performing career. His debut album, The Decades (2014), presents ten original works for solo piano inspired by classical forms, jazz improvisation and the pizzica and taranta traditions of Southern Italy. In 2018, Grand Piano released Piano Concerto No. 1 “Fantastico”, Piano Sonata No. 1 & Indigo Mirage, featuring Esposito as soloist with the Budapest Scoring Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eliseo Castrignanò. His third album, I Mari della Luna, followed in 2019, exploring his music in a trio setting with piano, electric bass and drums.
Discography
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The DECADES, Piano SOLO ALBUM (Workin Label 2014)
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Piano Concerto “FANTASTICO” with Symphonic Orchestra (NAXOS 2018)
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I mari della Luna with Trio (Indipendemo 2019)
Concert programmes
1) ROBERTO ESPOSITO – SOLO PIANO
As a versatile pianist, Roberto’s solo performances include his arrangements of well known classical and jazz pieces along with elements of traditional music from the South of Italy. The performance will of course also travel through his 3 albums - “The Decades”, “Piano Concerto Fantastico” and “I Mari della Luna”.
2) I MARI DELLA LUNA TRIO
A classic jazz trio of piano, double bass (or electric bass) and drums will present Roberto’s last album “I Mari Della Luna” which is dedicated to the dark areas on the moon's surface. Ancient astronomers thought that those were made of water and gave them the Latin name of Mare (sea). Only later did the scientists discover that these were plains of basaltic material generated by ancient volcanic eruptions.
3) Piano Concerto No. 1 “Fantastico”
The Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 8, “Fantastico” stems from Roberto’s desire as a pianist and a composer to engage with the major musical structures of the 19th- and 20th-century Classical and Romantic music. While drawing inspiration from the great composers of the past, he injects classical form with the musical idioms closest to his heart - those of jazz and folk music of both his native southern Italy and the Mediterranean.
The opening movements of the concerto look back to earlier times (memories of Beethoven, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Scriabin) and the sonata structure - exposition, development, recapitulation - but with the sharpness of the language of improvisation adding new light and freshness to these traditional forms (especially in the central part). The two movements are primarily distinguished by the use of two very different keys, namely F sharp minor and B flat minor.
Jazz influences come forward in the central movement. The concerto’s Adagio ironico (in A–B–A form) refers to the big-band tradition of Duke Ellington. The concerto’s finale, Presto, uses melodic fragments typical of the pizzica salentina (a traditional folk dance from Puglia), built on a characteristic triplet-based rhythm (in 4/4 and 12/8). It sets out two contrasting themes, one rhythmical, the other melodic, that unfold along a single harmonic line.