Einaudi: My grandad was president, my father a publisher

The composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi grew up with one ancestor as post-War president of Italy and another as its leading literary publisher. What chance did he have in life?

If I could re-live any time in my life I would go back to when I was maybe eight years old. I would go back to one of my summers in those years when everything seemed to be easy. The world was like a paradise for me in those years. I had a yellow bicycle and I was all day long with my friends, just enjoying life at its purest.

A breakthrough for me was when I decided to take the courage to do things in front of the audience and align my life as a composer with my life as a performer. I decided that I was going to be an artist, a full artist. This took me some time. I was in my thirties. I was doing music before that but I was composing for films and writing music for other people. That, for me, wasn’t enough. I needed the relationship with an audience. I love doing concerts. I love touring. And I think, for my balance, to stay all the time in one place and in one studio is not enough.

Read on here.