Great conductor and piano Maestro Igor Longato answer our international interview


1. What is the first experience you remember with music?
2. What musical personality do you think most influenced your career?
3. What was the style or composer you liked study when you were young?
4. What repertoire are more comfortable today for you? Tell us, please, any anecdote with the piano (in a course, or concert ...)
5. What do you think of the current situation of teaching piano and music?
6. What are your favorite musicians?
7. Do you think it is useful to know resources about improvisation? Why?
8. How much important is for you developing creativity in a pianist?
9. What musical projects do you have in mind?
10. What advice or recommendations would give now a piano beginner?
11. Want to add something more about your relationship with piano?
1) I started listening to music very early with my mother. Her brother (my oncle) was first oboe with 'I solisti della Scala di Milano', and I've hear the orchestra from 'La Scala' in a chamber concert. It was extremely interesting and my oncle was there, to I felt more the interest. Then I heard a russian pianist in tournée, and at the end he gave me a signature on the concert program. I was very touched from this 'act' that I never seen before.


2) If you mean the direct influence on my playing he is certainely the Argentinian-Italian pianist Fausto Zadra, and some lessons with the russian pianist Boris Bloch, not for the musical taste, but for the way of practicing. The careere is something that is influenced by many factors, who are not only solved with the practice on the piano. It's a lot inside the human been. In one moment you feel that you are ready and the activity starts!

3) When I was young I loved very much Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Brahms, but then... I discovered Rachmaninoff, and he became my favourite. And I find good this, because to play those composers you must be very 'active' and sometimes/often very 'muscolar'. If you don't work those composers soon they will scare you later.

4) Now, after many years of sound search, technical solution for my piano technique, work on the architecture of the music, I like more Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart and Haydn. More transparent and 'clean'. When I go back to the repertoire of my youthness I play it in a more refined way, but I recognize that I can do that because I've studied those composers a lot before.


5) you mean in the world or my personal vision? I can only answer my personal vision of the teaching. When you are young you think that you have a fantastic ear, but you need a better technique, and I was approaching more the technique first and music as a consequenze of a good technique. Now, a bit older, I understood that a very good ear is the most important, and the imagination of the piece and the different sounds are the most important aspects to create a very good technique.

6) I kove many different musicians depending of the music: but in general I can surely confirm that I like incredibly much to listen to Arcady Volodos, Vadim Rudenko, Kristian Zimmerman, Martha Argerich. Those are my favourites.

7) the improvisation is very important. Nevertheless the approach of improvisation is on the opposite side of the classical study. Depending of the character of the person it can help very much, to make the student play more free. I put this learning on the same level as sight reading learning.

9) I'm not working more as a conductor, on the piano I love to play, but my need of the sound is more on the direction of the orchestra. In the conducting projects I dedicate a lot to children, as I find important for them to learn, touch, experience music.

10) search the best teacher in your area. If you want to spare money now finding the 'first' teacher you get to know, or the cheapest one, you will spend probably much more in the future and will lose a lot of time. Better to have the best from beginning.

11) My relation with piano is between love and need. Love because I love his sound and the enormous possibility of colours that it offers. Need because I need to touch it (and practice) everyday, but I have always to find pleasure.

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Musicógrafo influencer. Distinguido en Global Music Awards (EEUU). 1er Premio Concurso Piano Maestro Serrano. Especializado en Falla. Estrena Improvisaciones Albéniz y Granados (Boileau). Revistas: Música y Educación, Allegro, Ad Libitum, Polifonía y ArtsEduca. Coautor: 29 Maneras concebir silencio (Univ. Jaume I), Canto Natural (Bromera). Coord: Los poetas ante la música (Bubok). Autor: Piano Creativo (Rivera), Piano Español (Lulú) y Aprende a Improvisar al Piano (Redbook)

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