Ludovico Einaudi's new album will be released on January 31, 2025. 'The Summer Portraits' is published by Decca to seal 20 years of collaboration with the artist.
Last year I spent my summer vacation in a house on a Mediterranean island.
The first thing I noticed when going up to the first floor was that the walls of the bedrooms were decorated with many small oil paintings depicting angles and views of the surrounding nature. Flowers, trees, wider views of the forest with the sea in the distance. They all reflected a certain sunny vitality that gave me joy. This intrigued me and after a while, investigating, I learned that these paintings had been painted in the middle of the last century by an aristocratic Roman lady who spent long periods of summer in that house with her family.
So I began to think about my summers, about that period of time in which my life was closely linked to the senses and emotions, when the days were as long as months and the months as years, and every day was an experience in which nature was a fundamental part of it, we ourselves were nature.
This album is dedicated to this, the portrait of that infinite and wonderful time for all of us.”
There are thirteen musical portraits that make up 'The Summer Portraits', Ludovico Einaudi's seventeenth album.
Ludovico-Einaudi_The-Summer-Portraits-album-2024.
Some pieces were recorded in the Abbey Road studios, featuring the baroque violin of Théotime Langlois de Swarte and the strings of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames. Others were recorded in Dogliani's studio, on the hills of the Langhe, in a more intimate and personal atmosphere with the musicians who have collaborated with Einaudi for many years – Federico Mecozzi, on violin and viola, Redi Hasa on cello and the poly instrumentalist Francesco Arcuri.
The single Rose Bay takes its name from the Sydney suburb where Einaudi's paternal grandfather Wando Aldrovandi had emigrated in the 1930s. Renowned conductor, admired by Prokofiev and Puccini, Aldrovandi had been forced to leave Italy because he refused to play for the fascist government. His departure, when Einaudi's mother was just twelve years old, left a great void in the family. Aldrovandi from Australia wrote many letters to his children, trying to provide for their needs, but unfortunately he never got to see them again. “My mother missed her father all her life but music was somehow the space that helped her compensate for this absence.”
Einaudi wrote Rose Bay in February 2024 while waiting to do the concert in the evocative dressing rooms of the Sydney Opera House, which directly overlook the bay. He later added arches to create the suggestion of the rippling movement of the water mixed with the glittering reflections of the sun.
THE VIDEO
The video for 'Rose Bay', the first single and opening track of 'The Summer Portraits', is available with suggestive images that tell some moments of his childhood summers.
LIVE
The “Summer Portraits Tour” will start on October 9th at the Lingotto Auditorium in Turin, and will continue in November in the great theaters of Europe, which are already all sold out. The musical year will close at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan with the traditional December concerts which this year will be seventeen. Between February and March 2025, the tour will visit arenas in Germany, Switzerland and France, many of which are already sold out. In May for the third time he will play at the Waldbuhne in Berlin, while in June he will return to London with a residency of five concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, already all sold out, a record for this theater for a pianist.
At the piano, Ludovico will be accompanied by:
Federico Mecozzi, violin
Redi Hasa, cello
Francesco Arcuri, percussion
Alberto Fabris, bass
Gianluca Mancini, keyboards
Rocco Nigro, accordion
Rimini Classica String Ensemble.
THE DATES
9 OCTOBER – TURIN, GIOVANNI AGNELLI AUDITORIUM – SOLD OUT
10 / 11 OCTOBER – FLORENCE, TEATRO VERDI
8 NOVEMBER – BARCELONA, GRAN TEATRE DEL LICEU – SOLD OUT
9 NOVEMBER – MADRID, TEATRO REAL – SOLD OUT
11 / 12 NOVEMBER – LONDON, LONDON PALLADIUM – SOLD OUT
14 / 15 NOVEMBER – PARIS, THE MUSICAL SEINE – SOLD OUT
17 NOVEMBER – AMSTERDAM, CONCERTGEBOUW – SOLD OUT
18 NOVEMBER – BRUSSELS, BOZAR – SOLD OUT
21 / 21 NOVEMBER – BERLIN, PHILARMONIE BERLIN – SOLD OUT
22 NOVEMBER – MONACO, ISARPHILHARMONIE – SOLD OUT
21 NOVEMBER / 17 DECEMBER, MILAN – TEATRO DAL VERME
19 JANUARY – ABU DHABI, ETHIAD ARENA
19 FEBRUARY – KOLN, LANXESS ARENA
20 FEBRUARY – HANOVER, ZAG ARENA
22 FEBRUARY – MANHEIM, SAP AREA
23 FEBRUARY – MUNCHEN, OLYMPIAHALLE
25 FEBRUARY – STUTTGART, HANNS MARTIN SHELEYER HALLE
26 FEBRUARY – ZURICH, HALLENSTADIUM, SOLD OUT
28 FEBRUARY – LEIPZIG, QUARTERBACK IMMOBILIEN ARENA
MARCH 1 – DORTMUNG, WESTFALENHALLE
2 MARCH – HAMBURG, BARCLAYS ARENA
4 MARSO – NANTES, ZENITH – SOLD OUT
5 MARCH – PARIS, ACCOR ARENA – SOLD OUT
6 MARCH – LYON, LDLC ARENA
31 MAY – BERLIN, WALDBUHNE
30 JUNE -/ 4 JUNE LONDON, ROYAL ALBERT HALL – SOLD OUT
