ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Italian post-classical pianist and composer Luca Longobardi incorporates contemporary electronic music into his pieces.

Born in 1976 and classically trained in Italy and New York, Longobardi earned his doctorate in digital audio restoration in Rome in 2011. His self-released debut album, 2010's 29/33, combined classically inspired piano pieces with jazz and world music influences. As his career progressed, he began to incorporate subtle electronic music techniques to create unique ambient-inspired soundscapes, including the unusual use of a reverb pedal with his acoustic upright piano.

The influence of acts like Ludovico Einaudi and Nils Frahm is unavoidable, but on at least some of his work Longobardi leans in more to tradition, embracing the influence of the actual Classical era. Since his debut, an almost-constant stream of digitally released albums, EPs, and singles kept him in the spotlight. Almost all of his albums were self-released, with a few exceptions, all of them issued in 2021: Landscapes (Noox), the Empty Man soundtrack (Lamp) -- a documentary, not to be confused with the 2020 horror film The Empty Man -- and Weltschmerz (Parallel). That year, Longobardi also signed an exclusive licensing deal with Believe Digital; the first album released through this was his soundtrack to the romantic drama film About Us. He also composed the soundtrack for the film Monsieur Quiconque.

Longobardi's music was heard by millions worldwide as part of the touring art exhibition Immersive Van Gogh, for which he served as composer and musical director. Some of the music that accompanied the exhibitions is documented on the 2019 EPs Vincent and Van Gogh: La Nuit Étoilée. Later, for the exhibition Mozart Immersive: The Soul of a Genius, which used AI-generated artwork, he rearranged and "recomposed" works from the great composer's repertoire; an album of these recordings was released in 2023. ~ TiVo Staff