About

Marcello Severo (b. 2002) is a composer-pianist residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began to play and compose for the piano at an early age, and later refined his technique and interpretative ability on the instrument through his study with Anne Cunnyngham Russell. His work as a pianist spans across genres, from interpretations of the classical piano canon, to jazz extemporizations, and performances of his own compositions for piano. As a composer, he seeks to synthesize the contrapuntal style of the classical masters with a rhythmic sensibility deriving from minimalism and from popular styles of music. Among his compositions are a piano concerto, numerous sonatas and short pieces for piano, chamber works of various instrumentation, and works for jazz band. At present, he is composing a one-act opera based on an original libretto, entitled The Sale of Diogenes.

Music

My musical experience covers a large range of styles; I am just as comfortable improvising choruses over a 32-bar jazz standard as I am performing a Beethoven sonata by memory. Some aspects of musical style that I am drawn to, and that I take influence from, include the polyphonic mastery of Bach; the harmonic innovations of Debussy; the repetition and slow, gradual change in the music of Steve Reich; and the dizzying rhythmic complexity of Tigran Hamasyan. In my capacity as a pianist, I am also indebted to Glenn Gould, not only for his groundbreaking interpretations of keyboard music, but more broadly for his view of musical interpretation as its own art, which serves not only to realize a composer’s intentions, but to add something completely new on top of the music as the composer envisioned it. This kind of musical interpretation is especially relevant to me, as I can approach any given piece of music from the viewpoint of both a composer and a performer.

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