Stefano Battaglia

Stefano Battaglia (born 1965 in Milan) is an Italian classical and jazz pianist, as well as a soloist and bandleader. He has played more than 3,000 concerts as an improviser in many important festivals and international appointments over the world. He has also recorded more than 100 CDs and received numerous awards for his solo piano and trio recordings. He is currently working on an anthology of recordings called the Book of Jazz.

Life and career Stefano Battaglia was born on August 31, 1965, in Milano, Lombardia, Italy, and began to study piano when he was seven years old. He graduated from the Conservatory of Milan, a college of music located in Milan, Italy. He mainly played Baroque keyboard repertoire in Italy and also abroad, with a main focus on composers such as Bach, Scarlatti, and Handel, as well as XVII century program and modern music with a focus on composers like Hindemith, Boulez Messiaen, and Ligeti.

Battaglia has performed extensively nationally, performing as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona (1981). He won the J.S. Bach Festival award in Düsseldorf for best new pianist of the year (1986) and the Brussels National Radio Award as the best young European pianist (1997), earning him wider attention worldwide. Other than solo performances, he has also focused on studying the trio format of piano, bass, and drums, as well as the duo piano-percussion format with Tony Oxley, Pierre Favre, Bill Elgart, and Michele Rabbia.

Teaching career Since 1988, he has been teaching at the Siena Jazz summer program, where he teaches improvisation techniques for the three-year course and the two-year course of Siena Jazz University. He has also been conducting Laboratorio Permanente do Ricerca Musicale since 1996, a workshop on musical research, improvisation, composition, and creation in music. Since 2018, he has been teaching at the Accademia Chigiana and directs the Tabula Rasa project of the Chigiana Siena Jazz Ensemble. Battaglia is a founder of the jazz group Triplicity and Theatrum as part of the Permanent Workshop for Musical Research in Siena.

Since 2004, he has been recording as a leader for the ECM Records, with important work on the CD focusing on the Raccolto, Re: Pasolini, Pastorale, the River of Anyder, Songways, and Pelagos.

Discography

As leader