Andrea Centazzo

During his artistic career that spans over 40 years, percussionist, composer, author, conductor, multimedia artist and teacher Andrea Centazzo has given more than 1000 concerts and live performances in Europe, Asia and the United States, as well as appeared and performed on numerous radio and television broadcasts worldwide. He has recorded over 120 LP's, CD's and DVD's, and he has authored 400 compositions mostly published by Warner Chappell (ranging from opera and symphony to solo works), 2 drum methods and four musicology books. He's also author of his operas' librettos and he wrote extensively articles and essays on the major Italian magazines and newspapers. He's the director of more than 20 video films presented in all the festivals and venues around the world based on his percussion music.. Centazzo has taught courses on Percussion, Music. Art, Film and Video in Universities, High-schools and Music Conservatories from the University of Bologna, to the Music Conservatory in Stuttgart (Germany), from the High School of Setubal (Portugal) to the Art School of Trieste, Italy (complete list available). He has performed at festivals, concert seasons and theaters as percussion soloist and conductor of his compositions, conducting members of the American Youth Symphonic Orchestra, the LA Contemporary Orchestra, the Mitteleuropa Orchestra, the ER Youth Symphonic Orchestra and many Ensembles. He also directed and staged his operas as well theatrical plays of other US authors. His opera TINA was highly acclaimed in Italy (1996) as well in California (1998) with Englsh libretto translation by Paul Vangelisti. In 2002 Centazzo composed Sacred Shadows a multimedia work scored for Balinese Gamelan and Western Ensemble. In 2009 he conducted the John Cage Concerto for Piano and Orchestra featuring Stephen Drury at the Williamsburg Center in NY City in a triple bill featuring also John Zorn and Philip Glass. Solo percussion Centazzo was one of the "game changers" (Drum Magazine, 2013) starting the solo improvised percussion concert movement back in the 70s. In 1972 he performed the first solo concert followed in the years by performances all over the world. For 20 years now, Centazzo has been working to create multi-media experiences, combining live music with video images, blending traditional instrumentation with the latest music digital technology. His two multimedia solo project "Mandala" (2005 inspired by the Buddhist Universe) and "Eternal Traveler" (2007 inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci) have been performed both in USA and Europa. Lately (2008-2011) Centazzo wrote and performed 2 multimedia shows: "Einstein's Cosmic Messengers" (with astrophysicist Michele Vallisneri inspired by the Gravitational Waves produced by NASA-Caltech) and R-Evolution (inspired by the life and work of Charles Darwin). A solo anthology concert was presented in 2011 at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.