An exciting piano anthology featuring works by some of the greatest contemporary American composers all based on the jazz masterpiece ‘Round Midnight and performed by Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli.

“The original idea for ‘Round Midnight Variations did not have a painful or difficult birth. Simply, on a summer afternoon in 2000, in Cincinnati, I thought of a project to involve American composers whom I had known at the beginning of my collaboration with the Contemporary Music Festival at the College Conservatory of Music. It seemed a more fascinating and direct idea to ask various musicians to work on the same theme, concentrating their creativity on the same subject. I immediately identified Thelonious Monk’s famous standard as an ideal starting point, for various reasons, among which its being the opposite of the classic theme for variations: harmonically complicated, difficult despite the sensuality of the melodic line, and ever different in the innumerable interpretations of the great jazz musicians who have tackled it. And then because we are talking of a very famous work, almost a jazz manifesto, and therefore perfect to embody an important aspect of the spirit of America. Finally, because I love this piece very much, and I was curious to discover different facets thanks to other musicians” Emanuele Arciuli