Federico Albanese

Federico Albanese (born 1982 in Milan, Italy) is an Italian composer and pianist who releases solo albums and writes music for films. In his compositions, he combines minimalistic piano melodies, string arrangements, and electronics. Albanese’s cinematic melodies draw on elements of classical music, pop, and ambient music. The artist now lives in Berlin and works as a musician, arranger, composer, and producer.

Life

As a child, Albanese studied piano and clarinet, and later bass. Influenced by black music, folk, electronics, modern, and contemporary classical music, his first compositions soon emerged. Together with singer Jessica Einaudi aka J Moon, Albanese founded the avant-garde duo "La Blanche Alchimie" in 2007. They released 2 albums.

The experience of the compositional work with Einaudi led him to rediscover his love for the piano, and he finally decided to make a solo piano project. In his new adoptive home, Berlin, he devotes himself fully to the piano, and so his celebrated solo piano debut "The Houseboat and the Moon" was released by Denovali Records in spring 2014.

Work

The American music magazine Under The Radar presents Albanese’s solo piano debut "The Houseboat and the Moon" and describes it thusly: "Italian pianist/composer Federico Albanese creates delicate and sentimental compositions that a listener could get lost in." The solo debut is released by Denovali Records in spring 2014. All the piano voices are recorded with a German tape recorder from 1969, the Uher Royal Deluxe. By using this machine, he is able to catch all the hidden shades, the imperfections, as well as the noises of the piano and the surroundings. This fact gives his compositions a distinct and original sound. Official biography

Albanese combines this special piano sound with electronic elements, string arrangements, and recordings of instruments he has developed himself. "The Houseboat and the Moon" is a multifaceted work, which has already thrilled 55,000 listeners on Soundcloud because of its musically diverse atmospheres. Some selected compositions are remixed by Cassegrain, John Lemke, Saffronkeira, and Franz Kirman (Piano Interrupted). These reinterpretations are published as the limited EP "The Houseboat and the Moon Reworked" by Denovali in mid-August 2014.

Further, Albanese already wrote and produced music for several commercials and for the films "Pick Up" (2010) from Many Hands, "Shadows In The Distance" (2012) from Orlando Bosch; the premiere took place at the Shanghai Film Festival 2013, and for "Alles im grünen Bereich" (2014) from Bahar Ebrahim.

The first, eponymous album of the Duo "La Blanche Alchimie" came out in Italy in 2009. The second album "Galactic Boredom", produced by Ludovico Einaudi, was also released in Germany in 2012. "Galactic Boredom" was nominated for the "Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik" as "Best Independent Album". In 2014, Albanese produced the debut album "Melt" of J Moon, Jessica Einaudi’s solo project.

Discography