There’s a very good chance you've heard the music of Ludovico Einaudi—an international Italian icon known for his masterful fusions of classical piano with everything from pop and ambient to electronics and cinematic influences.
But this maestro is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Italian neoclassical music—as can be easily seen from a recent slew of superlative album releases. Take Atelier by Remo Anzovino, which landed in January this year and celebrates a career that has already spanned 21 albums over twenty years, not to mention clocked up 30 million streams on digital platforms in 180 countries around the world.
Anzovino is best known for his contributions to film music—his compositions have soundtracked an impressive number of major films about cultural and historic figures, from Frida Kahlo, Napoleon Bonaparte and Vincent Van Gogh to Claude Monet, Muhammed Ali and Pier Paolo Pasolini. But Anzovino has also found national acclaim as the composer of “Suite for Vajont,”chosen by the Vajont Foundation as the official music in memory of the 2000 victims of the 1963 disaster, and global renown via UNESCO for his compositions “Igloo” and “Tempo Tempesta” for the 2020 #NoiSiamoOceano campaign; his 2023 soundtrack for the Winter Breath documentary, made by the Italian Red Cross during the first year of the Russia-Ukraine war, also made international headlines.
Parallel to his recording and film-scoring career, Anzovino has also proved himself a consummate pianist and live artist by playing all over the world—and his 22nd album Atelier captures this perfectly. Recorded live for solo piano in the studio of renowned sculptor Giorgio Celiberti on two exclusive invitation-only evenings, the album presents new versions of many of his best-loved songs, including “Dispari” and “Tabù” from his early albums, the more recent “Don't forget to fly”, plus an unreleased song, “Chaplin”, which was composed two decades ago for the live soundtrack of Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece The Circus but never before published.
“In these twenty years, I have essentially set human emotions to music, especially the most hidden, sometimes unspoken ones,” Anzovino told Sky.it. “Chaplin's lesson, with his masterpiece of the time, is even more relevant today after a century: especially with social media, the impression is that we have all become the unintentional attraction of the big circus.”
Another lauded album (and a couple of superlative single releases) was recently released by an equally well-established master of the neoclassical genre, albeit very different to Anzovino: Cesare Picco. Picco has been releasing music since the 1990s, and has written music for ballets, operas and theatre, as well as for special projects performed worldwide at prestigious venues such as the Venice Guggenheim, the Tokyo Hara Museum of Contemporary Art and the Whitney Museum New York.
Having gained a reputation as an improviser, clavichordist, composer and writer, Picco has worked with jazz, electronics and world music, and has collaborated with a diverse array of distinguished artists including classical-pop tenor Andrea Bocelli, Little Dragon vocalist Yukimi Nagano, Iraqi oud player Naseer Shamma and trumpeter Markus Stockhausen, son of avant-garde legend Karlheinz. Last but not least, he has gained fame for his innovative “Blind Date Concerts,” whereby both musician and audience are cloaked in complete darkness. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, Picco published a novel dedicated to the life of J.S. Bach in 2019, entitled Sebastian.
Most recently, he released the mesmerising singles “Yume” and “Dream Portal” in 2025, as part of the official playlist for World Sleep Day, highlighting his interest in, and commitment to, themes of mental well-being and the therapeutic power of music. These follow on from his 2023 album Sky Tales, which brought together neoclassical and ambient soundscapes that blended piano, harmonium, cello, and subtle electronics.
Unsurprisingly, there are newer voices emerging from the Italian scene too. A major one is Emiliano Blangero, who was born in Alba in 2000, studied in Turin at the Conservatorio, and has undertaken masterclasses with renowned Italian composers Ezio Bosso and Roberto Cacciapaglia. His music has been steadily gaining international recognition since his debut single, "Think of You," was released in 2019, clocking up millions of streams on Spotify, sparking a tour with Lazza—one of the most influential Italian artists at the moment—and resulting in a sync of his song “Breath” in the successful Korean TV series “Heart signal – friends”.
His latest (third) album, 2024’s Someplace, offers 12 tracks of undulating emotional landscapes, with Blangero’s solo piano accompanied by Stefan Stancic on violin, Marco Decimo (who has worked with Ludovico Einaudi) on cello, produced by Nicola Lazzarin, otherwise known as the multi-award-winning Cripo, and mixed and mastered by Marco Zangirolami, who has worked with pianist and composer Roberto Cacciapaglia.
"Ludovico Einaudi, Dustin O'Halloran and Francesco Tristano have inspired me since childhood,” comments Blangero. “But the younger generation recognises itself in this simple musical language, and with the piano I try to involve even all those who are still far from this musical world. Simple and direct emotions: this is neo-classical music; with its expressive language it has the ability to embrace and move anyone… this is its power.”
