The Summer Portraits

Groundbreaking composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi announces his new album ‘The Summer Portraits’.

Last year, Einaudi took a villa on a Mediterranean island and found the house to be decorated with 30 or 40 beautiful oil paintings clearly made by the same hand. Upon investigation, he discovered the story of a woman who owned the house and spent every summer there with her family. She used to create new paintings every summer and leave them in the house.

“I started to think at my summers, the time where my life was strictly connected with all my senses, where the days felt like months and months like years, and I was free from morning to night, and every day was a new discovery of life, and nature was a fundamental part of it, we were nature” ”And I thought that everyone has their own version of the summer portraits," he says. “A beautiful season connected with the best moments of our lives. So, I started to make my own paintings with music. This album is dedicated to all our endless summers memories, all our beautiful moments.” 

Part of the album was recorded at Abbey Road, with baroque violin contributions from Théotime Langlois de Swarte and orchestral parts performed by the strings of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ames. The musicians with whom he has cultivated a lasting collaboration over many years—Federico Mecozzi on violin and viola, Redi Hasa on cello, and multi- instrumentalist Francesco Arcuri—recorded on almost all the tracks of the album including Rose Bay,  where you can also hear some subtle electronic elements. However, many songs better suited the intimacy of Einaudi's home studio in the countryside far better, where the whole experience was more personal, capturing the essence of ‘The Summer Portraits’.