The beginning of my musical study has been very casual. When I was around 7 years old my parents asked me if I would have liked to study piano and my answer was immediate. So, I began piano just for fun. My parents were not musicians and the choice of the teachers has been very casual until I was 12. At the time, I found my first real teacher whose name was Antonio Dilecce. He was not a pianist, but this man, who plays a clarinet and has a composition degree, although he may not suggest technical aspects of piano playing, he was able to help me to understand the direction I needed to pursue.

His direction was that the technical preparation had to be most important part of preparation of instrumental playing and he believed I was able to achieve and be able to be the one. It is easy to understand how difficult it must have been to solve all mechanical problems, but, it helped me to find the right way to come out successfully from many difficulties. All this work made my technique very strong, but mostly, it gave me an opportunity to discover my passion for the music and the piano. From that moment, I understood that the piano was the most important part of my life…. and it still is.

MOL: Tell us about your teachers?

After Antonio Dilecce, I studied two years at the "Piccinni" Conservatory in Bari (Italy) with a young very talented pianist named Gregorio Goffredo, who mostly works as an orchestra conductor in the Opera field. In these two years I simultaneously worked with Michele Marvulli, who is very well known in Italy for his teaching, conducting and performing. After these years, I got my First Class Honour Diploma at the Bari Conservatory. It is important to note that in Puglia, the region where Bari is, there are many wonderful pianists who have been awarded prizes in some of the most important international competitions and have very successful music careers. Some years later, I received a diploma with Honours in Piano Performing at the Royal College of Music in London. In the following years, I met the most important teachers of my career. They are, in chronological order, Aldo Ciccolini, Marisa Somma, Piero Rattalino and Eugenio Bagnoli.

Especially Aldo Ciccolini, he puts his art in teaching. It was very important for me to experience his way of thinking music and, especially, to see and hear his playing. I learned so much from the way he phrases music. Marisa Somma is the most sensitive, intelligent and imaginative woman one can only hope to have as a teacher. She has the extraordinary gift to make simple what is complicated and very deep what seems to be superficial. Practically the theory of the most important musicians: to give interiority to what is exterior and simplicity to what risks to be too complicate. Her ideas, also about technique, mixed to the great culture and the provocative way to think music of Piero Rattalino made me, musically speaking, very open-minded. I must add the great experience I had with Eugenio Bagnoli, who changed me with his ideas of being a great chamber musician and inspired conductor, pointing on the spatial perspective and the great difference of colours in piano playing. He gave me the opportunity to study with him in the prestigious "Fondazione Cini" in Venice. I had also the opportunity to attend some very interesting master classes by Lazar Berman and Francois-Joel Thiollier.

My family didn’t influence directly my musical studies because my parents were not musicians. However, they have been very supportive, standing by me and helping me any way they could. I must remember that my father, who died when I was 20, wanted me to be a pianist, also because his father, who I never knew, was a musician. The loss of my father made my decision to be a pianist much more than ever so that I can grant his dream.

MOL: About your practicing strategy...

I don’t have a particular practicing strategy because it really depends on what I must practice. It is very important, I think, to analyse as much as possible the composition you are practicing. This is so to understand the needs of achieving the objective of the composition. The most important thing for me is to be able to create a solid structure in which I can be as free as possible. Every natural expression in music has its own way frame of very clear and coherent ideas. This coherence must be excavated by the performer in every possible way. For example, the first intuitive idea I have on a new piece is tested and verified to make sure that it works. Any part of the work, technical and musical, is checked in detail to create the outcome spontaneous and deep. I strongly believe that this is necessary to express the highest degree of musical freedom, without loosing its structure and simultaneously to have a strong sense of three-dimensional space, like one finds in an orchestra performance. I must say that this task involves a huge mental energy. For this reason, I part my practicing time in 40 minutes so that mentally, I can be frequently be recharged.

What often happens to me, after a performance, was to hear that I was very communicative, strong in capturing the attention of the audience and technically very powerful. My repertoire includes also pieces that not frequently are performed such as Liszt’s great Transcriptions (Beethoven 7° Symphony, Symphonic Poem "Les Preludes"), Moritz Rosenthal, Godowsky and Friedman’s Paraphrases on Strauss’ themes. I think this can be very captivating for the audience because, also from the strictly technical point of view, they are not easy to play and they are quite spectacular to be performed.

Do you like any other forms of art? such as painting? a favorite writer? Tell us about it.

In your opinion, what are the characteristics of a good performer?

To be able to cope with any situation. For me, the capacity to renovate continuously to perform music enthusiastically is necessary skills set. Of course this is very complicated because repeating the same program many times can get the performer sick and tired of it and the playing can suffer for loosing its intensity. For this reason I think that the endless and incessant curiosity is a good winning kick if it works together with a big generous desire to give love to the audience through music.

How do you judge a good performance?

I think that the first thing to ask for obtaining a good performance is the structured emotional coherence. During the mental process of judging a performance, there is always the risk to relate it to a personal pre-existent idea. This can happen often while teaching and/or being part of a Piano Competition jury. I must say that, in both cases, I’m extremely careful. I often take part in competition committees and also when I teach my students, who fortunately are on a very good level (winners of national and international Prizes), the problem how to be always flexible in judging their performances is noteworthy. The most important thing for me is that in a performance shouldn’t miss a significant connection among the musical schemes, whatever the starting point can be, plus obviously a technical clearness. This can always keep the attention of the audience, even those ones who doesn’t realize it consciously.

MOL: Do you believe a performer must attend conservatory? What is your opinion on this and what is your personal opinion of conservatory training?

I have no idea about foreign Conservatories. In Italy they are, for sure, the best place for learning music (with due exceptions). This works, at least, talking about an academic preparation and the opportunities they can offer to the students in terms of comparison and collaboration

MOL: Where do you live know?

At the moment I live in Italy and precisely in Barletta, which is in the south, with Paola Bruni and our daughter Eleonora. We are very fortunate, because in this place, we can practice any hour of day and this not so easy to find for musicians!