Alessandra Celletti - 100 points and gold dust

Alessandra Celletti, a Roman pianist and composer of extraordinary talent, is going through a particularly fruitful creative period. She has just released the beautiful “The Golden Fly” for solo piano, and now the English label Ltm is putting out “Way Out”, a very odd album of oblique songs. I asked Alessandra to answer a few questions of mine…

Alessandra, we recently reviewed “Way Out”: tell me how this such innovative album came about, one where your beautiful voice takes centre stage alongside your piano.

It comes from the childlike part of me that still wants to play with sounds and colours. The voice, for me, was still uncharted territory. I never imagined that singing could bring such happiness. “Way Out” grew out of the words of an angel turned into verses by Renzo Pin, and out of my own idea of rock. There's also something wilful in it, in this wanting to do things my own way and this desire to sing no matter what. But the most important thing is that it's a completely sincere record, one I brought into being with care and dedication, also with the help of Fabio Ferri, the drummer, and Daniela Bombelli, who recorded the album while following and encouraging me with real enthusiasm.

Tell us about your musical career.

I've been playing piano since I was 6, but my musical adventure actually began even earlier, if what my mother says is true — she claims that as soon as I was born, instead of crying I was humming. It sounds like a tall tale, but she swears it's exactly how it happened, and I have no trouble believing it, since I've always had a cheerful nature and even now I always feel like singing. But my life as a musician hasn't always been easy. My time at the conservatory was very trying and full of contradictions, which I only overcame after graduating, when I met Vera Gobbi Belcredi, a remarkable teacher who managed to reconcile the rules and discipline that studying an instrument demands with my rebellious spirit. From there I started giving my first concerts and making various recordings as a performer, before naturally moving on to composition.

Your influences?

Certainly my classical training, French impressionism, minimalism, but also rock and electronic music — and not just music, but also painting, poetry, or even a chance encounter, a thought.

Alessandra Celletti and Satie.

Satie is my favourite composer. I'm drawn to and fascinated by his essentialness, his light-footed depth. On my album “The Golden Fly” I dedicated a track to him, imagining I was talking to him. Now the drummer Marcello Piccinini and I have made a version of his “Premier Gnossienne” for piano and drums.

How did you end up on Ltm?

It might sound like a play on words, but it's actually Ltm that ended up finding me. One day (last summer) I got a message on my Myspace page from a certain James Nice, asking me for a copy of my album on Satie. I only had one copy, so I told him I didn't want to part with it, but that if he liked I'd gladly send him a still-unreleased work of mine. That was “Way Out”. He was really struck by that music. He wrote to me that it was a brave piece of work, and that he liked the way voice, piano and drums interacted. So he offered to produce it. I couldn't believe it, you can't imagine how happy I was… especially because he'd grasped exactly what I was aiming for: a sound that steps outside convention, yet is also direct, built on melodies that are easy to connect with.

In your live shows do you split your set between your more classical repertoire and the material from “Way Out”, or do you mix them together?

It depends on the occasion. I don't have a fixed programme — I work it out each time with whoever's booked me to play, taking various factors into account. But more and more, whenever I can, I try to put together a set that brings all my different musical worlds together without separating them by genre. In my mind, music is music…

In several tracks, like the closing reprise of the theme from “Who Will Give Me Wings?”, from the 2006 album of the same name, there's this return to childhood motifs, to music-box sounds, to lullabies. Is that just my impression?

You noticed? I told you “Way Out” grew out of the childlike part of me. I still love music boxes — “Dear To Me”, the track that opens the album, is like a wordless lullaby, or like a gentle “once upon a time”; “Hundred Points”, despite fairly complex lyrics, is like a nursery rhyme sung with a smile while playing with the cat; “The World Is A Ball” is conceived as a ring-around-the-rosy, where you're happy simply for the sake of going round in a circle holding hands.

How is the album doing?

It just came out and I still don't have any objective sales figures, but the feeling is good, the reviews are positive and, on my Myspace page, I'm getting lots of beautiful messages.

Tell me about the third track on your album, "Burning"...

I had just finished writing the melody for "Gold", and the last line of the lyrics said "Gold has contaminated the earth, every excess must be burned..." I cut the second part of that sentence, and on the echo of that image I started playing... that's how this piece in an odd time signature came about... I immediately imagined a drum part that could underline this idea of fire even further... "Burning", in its notes, says that "every excess must be burned."

Listen, I got that impression seeing you live in Milan last summer and also in your records — beyond the obvious influence of Ravel and Satie, I get the sense of a progressive attitude to music. Have you met Keith Emerson?

I think it's an instinctive attitude. To me Keith Emerson is a legendary name, but I don't know much about him. I'll have to look into it...

"The Golden Fly". Tell me all about it.

Imagine a fly, a small, ugly, annoying insect... that suddenly turns to gold. A tiny but important piece of magic that sets off a golden, weightless flight across the piano keys. That's all there is to it.

Tell me the 10 records you'd take with you to a desert island.

This is the hardest question. Definitely at least two Nick Cave albums, which I adore, "No More Shall We Part" and "The Boatman's Call", then "Alina" by Arvo Part, which would blend perfectly with the waves of the sea, "Another Green World" by Brian Eno, the whole of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (in case there's ever a moment when my balance falters), "Bright Red" by Laurie Anderson, Mozart's Requiem, my own "Way Out", which is still too newly born to be abandoned, a record made purely of free harmonies where you can improvise different melodies every time, and finally "Back Soon" by Joachim Roedelius... because on a desert island I wouldn't last very long...

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