The site of GIOVANNI GROSSKOPF, composer and pianist
Born in 1966. He graduated at the State Conservatory of Music "G.Verdi" in Milan, Italy: Piano (1988), Composition (1994), Computer Music (1997) with full marks.
He
attended
a
three-years
Piano
masterclass
at
the
"G.Marziali"
Academy in
Seveso, held by the pianist Bruno Canino.He attended also a Composition masterclass with Franco Donatoni, at the Municipal Music School in Milan.
Among his teachers: Bruno Canino (piano), Niccolò Castiglioni (composition), Pippo Molino (composition), Alberto Barbero (composition), Guido Salvetti (music analysis), Luigi Zanardi (piano), Riccardo Sinigaglia (computer music).
He has also attended composition seminars with Niccolò Castiglioni, Franco Donatoni and György Ligeti.
He
has
a
great
activity
as
a
composer
and
his compositions have been
performed in international concert seasons abroad (Regentenkamer
Theater at The Hague, Netherlands; Concerts of the S. Paulo University,
Brazil; Omni Foundation in San Francisco, U.S.A; Masterclasses in
Adelboden, Switzerland; 7.Internationale Musikfreizeit in Limburg,
Germany; Concerts of the ArcoArtis Association in Amadora, Portugal;
Dorset Guitar Society, England; Bar-Ilan University, Israel; Socrates
Comenius 2006, Sweden; iBeam Music Studio in New York City, U.S.A., and
others) and in Italy (Milano, Bolzano,
L'Aquila, Cagliari, Massa, Brescia, Busto Arsizio, Amandola,
Portogruaro, Mogliano Veneto, Monza, S.Giorgio del Sannio, Appiano
Gentile, Montefiore, Brugherio, Arese, Cogorno, Rovereto, and so on…)
and are part of the repertoire of many ensembles and soloists. He has
worked or is working with musicians and artists such as Gruppo
Kairòs and Insight Quartet in Bolzano/Bozen, the Compagnia della
Luna Nuova in Milan, the Trompeten Ensemble in Linz (Austria), the Trio
Subtilior in Madrid and the duo
Cuypers-Lop in Tarragona (Spain), the "Duo46" (U.S.A.), the Grandi
Quartet in Bologna, the Ensemble
Webern in Adria, Giorgio Baggiani, Gemma
Bertagnolli, Silvia Cesco,
Gianandrea
Noseda, Luciano Rossi, Daniele
Scanziani, Emanuele Segre,
Francesco
Libetta, Luciano Chillemi,
Luca Belloni,
David Whitwell
and
many others. In January 1999 the Vatican Radio has dedicated to him a
whole episode of a program on the contemporary composers, depicting him
as one of the deepest young Italian composers, and his music has also
been featured in similar programs on the national Italian radio
RAI-RADIOTRE and on the National Radio of Argentina.One of his major projects is now the composition "Ritus" (in twelve movements, based on music materials from various mainly European ethnic oral traditions).
Many compositions of his have been published by ABEditore and also by Edizioni Suvini Zerboni.
Being highly interested in ethnomusicological "field"
recordings, and
to their possible relationship to the classical and contemporary
classical composition, he has published essays and lectured during
conferences on this subject.This interest is reflected also in his activity as a composer, through the collection and the study of countless examples of ethnic traditional music from all the World, and the personal development and reworking in his music of formal and structural models derived from them.
His musical production reflects also his other interests: Baroque music, Mediaeval music, the early 20th century music from France and from England and the U.S.A., the love for the mountains and Alpine life, for the nature, its sounds and its forms, the suggestions from the Nordic Countries and their culture, birds, religious anthropology, prehistoric art, folk rituals, the world of fairy tales, the importance of memories, and, moreover, the special care for harmony and for the tone colour in the chords.
He has also been active in musicological activities, with
papers and
lectures in Italy, France, Lithuania, regarding unique researches about
the study of chords in atonal and late-tonal music, and the study of
timbre affinities and timbre similarities among different chords, also
within an international project. He is actually the author of a
well-known original method of analysis and classification of the chords
in atonal or late-tonal music (Interval Perception Analysis), and of
the related theoretical model which is the base for its application.
Starting from these researches, he has also investigated the history of
the use of chords according to their timbre (which is typical of the
20th century composers) and the analysis of the different means,
employed during the 20th century, to achieve a feeling of logical
direction to the music (and to harmony, above all) also outside the
tonality system.
He
has
been
performing
in
concerts
as
a
pianist
since 1985, and he
loves to perform Bach (also with monographic programs on this author,
following an approach which he illustrated in the paper "Bach at the
piano: a lucky error", Rassegna Musicale Curci, January 1996), 18th
century music, monographic programs dealing with rarely performed music
(some Mozart's concertos in the original chamber music version,
Schumann's op.133, and a program about Grieg's relationship with the
Norwegian folk music, including his op.66 and op. 72, in collaboration
with the Norwegian Embassy in Italy), the 20th century music, and
contemporary music (also premiering some works), both as a soloist and
with other musicians. He plays in a duo formed with the clarinetist Alessandro Travaglini.
He
has
been
teaching
Harmony
at
the
Conservatory
in
Milan and in Brescia, Composition (and Piano) at the Cultural
Association "Liceo Musicale V.Appiani" in Monza, and Piano (and Guided
Listening) at the Municipal School of Music in Brugherio, since 1988,
for thirteen years, and then, for six years, General Music Culture and
"Theory of Harmony and Music Analysis" at the State Conservatory of
Music "G.P. da Palestrina" in Cagliari (Sardinia), where he has
also been professor of "Structures and Form in Music" in the
Ethnomusicology course.He is now full professor of Harmony and Music Analysis at the State Conservatory of Music "G.Verdi" in Milan, Italy.
Activities: composer, pianist, musicologist.
Main areas of interest:
- composition
- harmony and use of chords in the 20th century and in contemporary music
- relationship
between ethnic traditional music and "learned"
composition, ethnomusicology
- relationship between music analysis and
performance, especially at
the piano.