Step Right Up (2018)
(Piano Concerto)

The image of a pianist sitting in front of the orchestral musicians is a strange image: he shares the same space as that extraordinary human blob, but is separated by an inert black spot, a physical and symbolic barrier. Not being strictly in the same place, he dominates the space - and is threatened by it.

 Something identical happens with his instrument: it has a relationship with the orchestra, but there is no real intimacy - it is a polite relationship. But above all it is a power relationship: because of its volume, scope, agility and dynamic response, the piano is also the closest instrument to the orchestra. If the orchestra is a splendid, kaleidoscopic music box, the piano is surely the most dazzling of sound machines.

The word 'machine' is important: in the vastness of things a piano can be, the precision and clarity of a machine is perhaps the most appropriate metaphor for my instrument - a mechanism that accommodates worlds as diverse as Baroque ornamentation or African bell rituals - the materials that ultimately define the character of the three movements (rough and extroverted; interior and crepuscular; processional and undulating), each of them always seeking  a different balance between piano and orchestra: an unstable dramatic relationship between almost equals.