Giovanni Allevi is an exceptional artist of unique intellectual and musical commitment. He feels his music not only with passion but with rigour, graduating with honours in Philosophy at the University of Macerata, Italy, graduating with full marks in Pianoforte at the Conservatory ‘F.Morlacchi’,­ Perugia, Italy, and graduating with full marks in Composition at the Conservatory ‘Giuseppe Verdi’, Milan, Italy. With his music he achieves a synthesis between the classical tradition and contemporary pop and jazz idioms, he is at home in the concert hall as he is in the stadium. "We are going back to a time during the Renaissance Era when the artist was a bit philosopher, a bit inventor and a bit crazy: he had to come out of his golden cage and deal with everything". He prizes the piano as a means of expression for its "closeness to the soul, to emotions and adrenaline".

 Beguilingly modest, almost neurotic, his boyish looks and manner are hugely accessible and appealing, and yet they hide a steely determination as Allevi seeks nothing less than to renew the language and purpose of classical music for our times; drawing the spirit of the past through the complexities of the present and so signposting the future, creating what he terms a ‘Contemporary Classical Music’. In his native Italy Allevi has superstar status, playing Christmas concerts for the Italian President and gaining plaudits from the Pope. He is a major figure in the international classical music world, playing sell-out concerts to tens of thousands of people around the globe and boasting an enviable catalogue of recorded albums selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

We met him during his european tour

October 25th Madrid - Teatro Alcázar

October 27th London - Southwark Cathedral

November 6th Paris - Théâtre de l'Alhambra

Q: Why your latest book Rebel Classic ?

GA: One day, at the Milan Conservatory, where I majored in composition, a group of students verbally assaulted me, screaming at me a series of insults. When I got home I realized it was the right time to make clear my aesthetic vision. I'm the rebel, who had the courage to propose a fundamental change in the world of classical music.

Q: The book Rebel Classic emphasizes the celebration of a contemporary classical music through an "intellectual patricide." What does your music have of classic and what of contemporary?

GA: The classic is to preserve the traditional forms (symphony, sonata, study, touch ...) but these can incorporate content from the world we are part of this contemporary, and that the greats of the past could not have imagined. This explains why the intellectual patricide: to create music that is an expression of this we must move away from the genes that have gone before us.

Q: Your life, as you write, is "Looking for that flash of poetry that is hidden in the folds of existence." What is poetry for Giovanni Allevi?

GA: Few moments when you feel "time with the cosmos" come when you decide to pursue your dreams by accepting the risk, when you find the courage to be totally yourself, away from the approvals and the pressures that society imposes on us. We are unconsciously forced to assume a mask of perfection, strength and success that does not belong to us. Through music and art can get in touch with our deepest emotions, with our sincere nature, and then we are happy!

Q: simplicity, complexity and technique. What is the right balance?

GA: You have to go through the complex, facing a hard job that requires years of academic study and acquisition of technique, to obtain the distillate of simplicity.Simplicity is complexity resolved.

Q: In one of your chapters you affirm, "Through the art comes into direct contact with the mystery of everyday life. The divine is everywhere, just get rid of the habit. " How do you take the distance from the habit?

GA: Trying to live the present as intensely as possible, looking at the world through the eyes of a delighted child.

Q: The Witch and the alien. Tell us about your magic world?

GA: The Witch is the music, I imagine, like a beautiful woman who wants to be spoiled me a few times and absolute dedication reciprocates my attention. She sometimes gives me a handful of notes that can reach my head for no reason. I find it to live a life devoted to fantasy, where every second is an opportunity to invent something new, where nothing is taken for granted, until an alien feel surrounded by aliens.

Q: The next dates of the alien Tour 2011: October 25 Alcazar of Madrid Theatre, Southwark Cathedral in London October 27, November 6 Alhmabre The Theatre de Paris.On what basis did you choose the songs for these shows?

GA: I am going to play on the piano the songs of "Alien", my last album that is perhaps the most complex, where the research is aimed towards the expansion of musical forms and execution concerns towards achieving a purity of sound , but I will insert other compositions taken from my previous jobs, and most loved by the public.

Q: Since 17 October 2010 when ALIEN WORLD TOUR started in Japan what kind of emotions did you receive by the audience ? Do you feel differences from one hemisphere to another?

GA: I wish I had a thousand lives to reciprocate the love and the emotions that the audience wanted to give me! Everyone lives my music in a personal and inner images suggests that it is an unfathomable mystery to me. So I can not make difference, but one thing is certain: at the end of the concert I meet people and I see a spark in their eyes, an enthusiasm that gives me the strength to go forward.

Q: Who is Giovanni Allevi in the life when you do not compose music?

GA: A simple person, full of anxieties, fears, sleeping little at night, who lives in a small apartment, which is not the worldly life, does not have a car and loves to wash dishes by hand. I compose music in my studio: a bench in the subway in Milan. I imagine that those notes are heard from people who descend from the train. My music is a hymn to life, to this!

Q: So much loved and much criticized. What do you want to say to those who love you. What those who criticize you instead.

GA: Who loves me I want to say "I love you! Thanks to your emotions, my music is alive, and for this I would hug you, whoever you are." Who criticizes me, especially to fellow musicians say: "Why do you have all this urgency to destroy me? Perhaps to avoid confrontation with me or maybe because they envy the affection that I addressed my audience?"