A Conversation with Luca Longobardi
Introduction
This interview inaugurates the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, a long-term project dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. The series aims to investigate how contemporary creators position themselves at the intersection of composition, production, and performance, and how these practices intertwine with technology, aesthetics, and the changing dynamics of the music industry. Through a Q&A format, the project collects first-hand testimonies that shed light on artistic processes, working methods, and the hybrid identities of today’s composers and producers.
This first conversation features Luca Longobardi, a composer and pianist whose work spans classical interpretation, electronic experimentation, and immersive performance. In this interview, Longobardi reflects on his education, his relationship with contemporary dance and multimedia art, and the integration of sound design and production techniques into his compositional practice. His words open up crucial questions about authorship, hybridity, and the role of technology in shaping the creative act.
Date of interview: 15 July 2025
Question: Today we often speak of a hybrid figure of composer, producer, and performer. Do you recognize yourself in this description? In what ways do these three dimensions coexist in your work?
Luca Longobardi: Absolutely. I began by studying composition, on the advice of my piano teacher at the conservatory. He was right in saying that studying composition allows one to gain a much clearer understanding of what one is interpreting: it is not just about memorizing chords or melodies, but about grasping the composer’s thought process. This becomes especially evident when tackling the classical repertoire, where even within the same composer’s work one traverses very different creative periods. That is how you come to understand, for example, why Mozart’s early sonatas are not like his later ones, or why Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano bear that title and not the reverse. All of this proved immensely valuable in my experience as a classical performer.
My passion for composition, however, truly ignited when I began working as an accompanist in traditional theaters, first at Teatro Verdi for opera, then at Teatro San Carlo for dance. It was there that I discovered contemporary dance, and from this experience two things emerged. First: I became acquainted with the figure of the contemporary choreographer, who embodies precisely what you describe, not only creating the choreography, but also choosing the music, envisioning costumes, light design, and sets. It is a total spectacle, a vision that can be found as much in a work by Pina Bausch as in Monteverdi. Second: I was introduced to a new musical repertoire conceived for dance, which prompted me to compose original pieces. For instance, I wrote music for a ballet at San Carlo in an internal production.
In parallel, during my PhD at La Sapienza on digital audio restoration, I discovered another world: I was restoring old recordings from Betacam, tapes, vinyls, cylinders, and VHS. Using software such as iZotope, I would eliminate clicks, pops, and glitches… but the result, instead of disappearing, fascinated me. Those imperfections became creative stimuli, a new form of sonic writing that I began to explore.
All of this is also reflected in my performances. When I play my compositions live, I never remain completely faithful to the score. I believe it is more important to present an extemporaneous act and create an authentic relationship with the audience, even by manipulating the form of the piece if necessary. I do not see myself as a mere interpreter of my own works, but as their composer: if I want to add an extra phrase or modify the color with sound design, I feel authorized to do so.
Furthermore, I often bring a multimedia dimension with me. I also work with visuals: I code in TouchDesigner, but I also use external machines, old cathode-ray televisions, and installations. In my performances, it is never just about “playing the album” I recorded, but about inventing, each time, a context that fully represents me.
Question: Which composers, musical movements, or even past aesthetics do you feel you have absorbed most deeply? Which languages have left a mark on your path and on the way you think about music?
Luca Longobardi: Beethoven, without a doubt. It is always the first answer I give to this question. When I went to study in America, I devoted six months to a monographic project on him: I listened to everything he had written, read scores, and studied numerous biographies. From Beethoven I learned above all two fundamental things.
The first concerns technique: his ability to expand and duplicate forms, from sonata to symphony, with a method that forces you to reflect on whether what you are writing is truly the continuation of an idea or a new one. If it is new, you set it aside, you do not throw it away. This approach is also invaluable in minimalist music, because it allows you to work on repetition and variation, reasoning about phrasing, harmonic progression, and structural economy, and exploiting every possibility.
The second lesson concerns orchestration: Beethoven always sought continuity between instruments, ensuring that the last note of instrument A corresponded to the first note of instrument B. This principle, which I still apply today when blending acoustic and electronic instruments or working with samples and soundscapes, guarantees a fluidity that involves not only timbre or layering, but the organic coherence of the musical discourse.
Alongside Beethoven, I deeply admire Murcof, who has a unique sense of the relationship between fullness and emptiness. In his eight-minute pieces, you can never predict what will happen next: this unpredictability fascinates me. The same goes for the glitch dimension of Alva Noto, which has strongly influenced me.
Another important reference is Nils Frahm: in his latest productions, such as Music for Animals, he manages to sustain twenty-minute pieces with micro-variations that keep the listener’s attention alive, even though the music might seem destined for background listening.
And then there are always the Impressionists: Debussy and Ravel taught me that an instrument can sound different if one shifts toward a harmony conceived as color, not just as functional relationship. The use of fourths and fifths in different registers to achieve a specific timbre or a certain sonic allure is a fundamental lesson that I carry with me.
In short, Beethoven is the constant presence, the unwavering reference. The other authors and languages vary depending on the period I am going through: what I study, what I play on the piano, what I listen to, or the research I am pursuing for composition. But Beethoven remains, ever-present.
Question: When you compose music for images, do you use the same approaches or compositional strategies that you employ in your non-film music? Are there elements of your language that remain constant, or does the visual context radically change the way you think about sound and form?
Luca Longobardi: To answer, I must begin with a fundamental premise: I do not enjoy writing for traditional cinema. I have composed very few film soundtracks, mainly because in that context there is a strong standard language that, unless one encounters truly experimental directors, leaves little creative room. Directors often see the film as their exclusive responsibility, whereas I believe that music makes us, in every respect, co-authors of the work.
My experience, fortunately, lies in a completely different field: that of immersive multimedia arts, where the paradigm is reversed, music comes before the image. It is not a matter of commenting on an already edited scene, but of building the work together, in a dialogue where music is a pillar of the narrative from the very beginning. Having worked for fifteen years with the same director, our method is a parallel creative flow. When we start a new production, we work separately at first and then meet; the director presents his vision and the structure of the storyboard, and I respond with musical ideas. It is at this stage, before a single animated image exists, that the soundtrack takes shape, becoming the guide that defines the rhythm and breath of the animation, much like in classic cartoons.
Since these works contain no spoken word, the music assumes a tremendously powerful narrative role, capable even of manipulating the perception of time. Thanks to this complete creative freedom, I can write for images exactly as I would write for an album, free from timelines and timecodes. This synergy is also possible because both the director and I come from a theatrical background, he as a dancer, I as a musician. For this reason, I always conceive of music in relation to a body that might move to it. In my writing, even in electronic works, I always seek to leave space, to let the score “breathe.” Beyond the technicalities, the real skill lies in knowing when to stop, how to create emptiness, so that the music remains danceable, even if only in the imagination.
Question: Every project has its own genesis. What is for you the most frequent starting point? A melodic idea, a harmonic idea, a specific texture, a technical limitation that you choose to impose on yourself, or an abstract emotion that arises from the narrative?
Luca Longobardi: My starting point is a combination of all these elements, but there is a specific line of thought that has become typical of my compositional method for the immersive world. This approach stems from a reflection on the evolution of the way we experience images. We began with the Lumière brothers and cinema, which was a physical act that required to step outside one’s routine to gather before a small screen in a hall shared with strangers. Later, the image entered our homes through television, transforming the experience into an act of aggregation chosen and shared with people we know. Finally, the image became even smaller, ending up in our pockets with the phone.
The immersive experience breaks this paradigm. It allows us to enter physically into the image, going beyond the barrier of the screen. In this way, the act is no longer confined to subjectivity alone but brings us back into a shared “hall,” similar to that of cinema, with the fundamental difference that now we are inside the narrative.
Starting from this concept, and in agreement with the director, my creative strategy always involves inserting within the soundtrack a piece that has the function of overwriting a personal memory with a new collective memory, the one created by the performance itself. To give a concrete example, in one production Prokofiev’s pas de deux is abruptly interrupted by Il cielo in una stanza by Gino Paoli. It is a deliberately unsettling choice. The effect is that whatever personal memory a listener may have associated with that song will, from that moment on, be forever overlaid by the memory of having experienced it in that unexpected context.
It is important to emphasize that this choice is almost never a purely rational idea conceived at a desk. It almost always emerges instinctively during brainstorming sessions; there comes a moment when the idea surfaces and we realize that this is the exact point where the mechanism of memory overwriting can be inserted. This process is based on a few principles that are fundamental to me: I try to be as sincere as possible, drawing from what I know and making very personal choices. We almost always put the performance first, before our ego or our artistic personality. It is the combination of all these factors that, in the end, leads us to that kind of decision.
Question: Speaking about the role of technology, I would like to focus on the DAW. What function does it have in your creative process? Has it become for you the main space for writing and experimentation, in some way replacing the traditional score thanks to the possibility of working directly on timbre and structure? Or do you consider it more of a functional tool, useful only in specific stages of your work?
Luca Longobardi: I have a particular relationship with the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). A few years ago I made the decision to remove the computer from my setup for live performances and, as far as possible, also from the recording process. This is not a denial of the usefulness of the computer, but rather a choice to avoid what I consider creative shortcuts. Modern machines and software, with their countless fashionable plugins, can push you not to demand enough from yourself, leading you toward standardized sounds. I preferred to step away from this approach in order to maintain a more personal process.
This choice is reflected in my working method, which changes depending on the context. If, for example, I play the piano, the process is direct: I sit down, press REC, and play; that recording is the final take, which I send straight to mix and master. When instead I compose for myself with my own setup of instruments, I record in multitrack. The situation is completely reversed when I write for images: in that case, the DAW becomes an essential and indispensable tool, mainly for synchronization needs, precise editing, and cutting.
In this latter context, I find the DAW extremely useful because it allows me to rationalize the creative process. Unlike a physical synthesizer with knobs and faders that you can manipulate simultaneously, the DAW forces you into a more sequential workflow: with a mouse or a controller you do one thing at a time, insert one plugin at a time, manage one parameter at a time. This sequential path is very helpful in the relationship between music and image.
My workflow does not involve writing on definitive images, but on a storyboard. Once I send the soundtrack to the animators and receive a first video draft with the director’s notes, the real tailoring work begins: I need to rework the music, perhaps shortening a section from forty to thirty seconds or extending another. In this tailoring phase, the DAW is fundamental precisely because it helps to organize the creative process step by step. I also use different software for different purposes: Logic is my tool for actual musical writing, while I use Ableton for more installation-based works, where I utilize plugins for data sonification.
Question: Do you ever think in visual or synesthetic terms even when you are not composing for images? If so, how do these inner visions influence your musical choices?
Luca Longobardi: Yes, absolutely. As a pianist, I have always felt the risk of becoming a simple “typist,” because ours is an instrument with which we do not have direct physical contact and with which we do not “breathe” in the same way as other musicians. There is a mechanical distance that makes it difficult to find a true biorhythm in performance.
To overcome this obstacle, I developed a way of thinking that is profoundly visual and synesthetic. For me, there are two fundamental mental images that guide my writing.
The first is that of a body dancing. Every time I compose, I constantly imagine movement in space: sometimes it is a single dancer, other times an entire corps de ballet, or simply theatrical gestures. This vision is not a whim, but an essential tool that allows me to move musical elements such as melody and harmony in my mind, infusing them with life and breath.
The second image is architecture. For me it is crucial that in music there are clear relationships of power, weight, emptiness, light, and shadow. If the moving body is the force that drives the music, architecture is the structure that contains it and gives it a defined form. It is precisely this sensation of structural completeness, as if a building were finished, that tells me when a piece is truly complete.
Question: Let us consider a practical case to explore your creative process. Imagine this scene: a protagonist walks slowly through a vast snowy landscape, immersed in total silence. Your task is to create a sound that amplifies the sense of emptiness, of profound isolation, and of suspended time. From a sonic perspective, the element to be constructed is a drone: a continuous sound mass, apparently static but in reality in very slow evolution, with a strong and defined timbral and expressive component. Faced with this challenge, where would you start? Would you work mainly with acoustic instruments, electronic instruments, or a combination of the two? Would you focus immediately on manipulation and sound design, or would you begin from a more traditional notation? In short, what would be your first compositional, production, or performative gestures to begin shaping this sound?
Luca Longobardi: For such a task, my choice would immediately fall on a specific machine: the Elektron Digitone. It is a synthesizer based on FM synthesis, and I find it perfect for handling sounds such as drones, which require slow and subtle manipulation capable of generating noticeable changes while always remaining coherent with the original material.
My process would begin directly on the instrument. First, I would create a preset from scratch, carrying out some initial sound design to lay the foundations of the sound. I would use all four tracks of the Digitone to create layering, in other words, a superimposition of sonic textures. The strength of this machine is that it allows the manipulation of the parameters of the four tracks both individually and simultaneously. This ability to manage, add, and remove elements on multiple levels in parallel is fundamental for constructing the complexity of the drone.
Immediately after the Digitone, I would use a chain of effects pedals, which is essential to adapt the sound to the scene. Imagining the cold imagery of a snowy landscape, my goal would be to create sonic artifacts in the high frequencies to give a glacial sensation. I might use a pedal such as the Chase Bliss MOOD or a Reverse Mode C, followed by a very large and enveloping reverb. At a certain point, I would increase the saturation to generate “air” within the sound. The sonic strategy would consist of starting from a low register and, by modifying the FM synthesis algorithms, generating harmonics that would “feed” those high-frequency artifacts, thereby creating a sound with a deep foundation and an ethereal, almost fragile upper layer, leaving the central space free for the image.
Every choice, including that of the reverb, has a narrative function. I used the same instrument to create a twelve-minute drone for one of my performances, Palindrome, but in that case the result was hyper-warm, because it represented a sunset. The instrument was the same, but the process for achieving the desired sound was completely different, since the narrative goal was different.
Finally, once I had found a satisfactory sonic base, I would move to the performative phase. I would play and manipulate the drone live while watching the scene, reacting in real time to what I saw. The most interesting aspect of the Digitone is its Overbridge interface, which creates a perfect bridge between hardware and software. It allows me to have an exact replica of the instrument within my DAW (Logic). This means that every physical manipulation I make on the knobs is recorded as automation, while the sound is still generated directly and analogically by the machine. In practice, it is like having a physical controller that is at the same time the sound source, uniting the best of both worlds: the physicality of performance and the precision of editing.
Question: Let us delve into the relationship between writing and production. Do you consider production, meaning timbral choices, sound design, or mixing, as a phase separate from composition, or as an integral and inseparable part of the creative act itself?
Luca Longobardi: The relationship between composition and production in my work is not fixed, but depends entirely on the project I am dealing with. There is no single rule; rather, I distinguish between two main creative modes.
On the one hand, there are projects that require a more analytical and gradual approach, such as a rework. In this case, the process is less instinctive. I begin with pre-existing material, the individual tracks (stems), which I must first analyze in the DAW in order to understand the original structure. Only after this phase can I begin to rework, asking myself what my idea is, what I like about the piece, and how I can reinterpret it conceptually. It is a methodical, step-by-step process in which composition and production are more distinct and reasoned phases.
On the other hand, there are moments of great inspiration in which the boundary between the two phases disappears entirely. This happens especially when I am at the piano or when I use an instrument setup that is already prepared and configured in a certain way. In these cases, the creative act is immediate and fluid: composition, sound choice, and arrangement take place simultaneously. Writing becomes directly its own finalization; composition is already the mixdown.
Question: I’m developing a theoretical model that I call the “expanded score,” a framework that describes not only the notes but also production choices (spatialization, processing, etc.) as structural elements of compositional thought. Would you find such a model useful? Have you personally ever felt the need to annotate these aspects in a non-conventional way as an integral part of composition?
Luca Longobardi: Yes, the idea of a framework such as an “expanded score” is absolutely useful and, in certain contexts, essential. Its necessity, however, depends on a crucial factor: who will perform the music.
If I am the one playing my own works, the traditional score is only a sketch for me. It is enough to note that a piece is in C major to have everything else in mind, because my live performance is itself a compositional act. I am free to do what I want, to adapt to the moment and the place, unless I am accompanying images or dancers, contexts that require a more structured support.
The situation changes radically when my music has to be performed by another interpreter. In that case, although I believe in the performer’s freedom, I have the duty to provide minimal but precise instructions to convey my intention. Let me give a concrete example: one of my pieces is titled Ariane. The score is hyper-minimalist, in the style of Arvo Pärt, with very few notes repeated in different octaves. However, the piece is not simply a piano work but an exact duo between the piano and the reverb. The performance requires that, as the piece progresses, the parameters of the reverb (such as the pre-delay) be modified in real time. The purpose is to make the sound source, the piano, progressively deteriorate almost to the point of disappearing, leaving only the attack of the sound. In this case, the reverb is not a mere effect but a true instrument with a structural and narrative function.
If I am playing it live, I manage everything extemporaneously. But if another pianist had to perform it, how could I write it? I could imagine an additional layer in the score, perhaps a staff dedicated solely to the reverb, similar to how one writes for percussion.
This need for clarity becomes even more evident in complex productions. For the immersive show on Mozart, I arranged his music for an orchestra of seventy musicians, in which two synthesizers and a series of effects were integrated. In such a context, a clear and detailed score is vital not only for the musicians and the conductor but also for the sound engineer, who must know exactly when to activate an effects send on a specific instrument.
Therefore, yes: finding a framework capable of codifying and communicating this information becomes absolutely essential when what you write has to be interpreted by other people. It is the only way to ensure that the compositional intention is respected.
Question: Speaking of spatial dimension, how do you approach technologies such as Dolby Atmos? Have you already begun to think of music in terms of multidimensional space from the compositional stage, or do you consider spatialization as a treatment to be applied at the final stage?
Luca Longobardi: Yes, the spatial dimension is for me a compositional element from the very beginning. My album Impermanenza, for example, was written directly in Dolby. However, it is important to make a significant distinction: my immersive shows, contrary to what one might think, are not spatialized in the traditional sense of the term. There are two main reasons for this. The first is technical: in order not to interfere with the projections on the walls, the speakers are positioned only above. This configuration does not allow the creation of a true 360-degree sound environment as required by an authentic Dolby Atmos system. The second reason is practical: in immersive spaces the audience is not seated but walks around. If a sound were localized in a precise point, a person on the opposite side of the room would perceive it only as a reflection, completely losing the intended impact. Spatialization works in cinema because the audience is stationary and the system is calibrated for that fixed listening position.
That said, my approach to Dolby Atmos for recorded music is very thorough, but its value for me does not lie so much in the possibility of placing a sound to the right or to the left. The real and greatest opportunity offered by Dolby is that of having much more space to clarify frequencies and, consequently, to clean the music. When you work inside that sonic “bubble,” you have the possibility of placing each instrument in a defined frequency space, achieving a clarity that is unthinkable in stereo. For example, in the rework I did of the piece Eine Kleine Nachtmusik , the Dolby version is completely different from the stereo one. In an arrangement dense with orchestra and synths, Dolby allowed me to give each instrument its own place, making the whole much more intelligible.
For this reason, spatialization for me is not a treatment to be applied at the final stage, but an integral part of composition. I write while already thinking in Dolby. The mistake that is often made, for instance by some major labels that convert their catalogs, is to take a finished stereo master and simply apply a Dolby reverb on top of it. That is an artifice, not true Dolby work.
I often use a culinary metaphor to explain it: it is one thing to cook a pasta alla norma, where you must think of the balance of many ingredients from the outset. It is another to take a plate of aglio e olio pasta that is already prepared and throw eggplant and ricotta on top at the end. The result will never be the same. To truly work in Dolby, you need to “rework the ingredients,” that is, the stems of the individual tracks, and rethink the mix from scratch. It is a creative process in its own right.
Question: Let us now talk about the performative dimension. In an age increasingly dominated by digital listening, often solitary and fragmented, how important is live performance for you? Do you consider it a fundamental and irreplaceable part of your artistic journey, or a secondary aspect compared to studio work? And when you think about the act of performance, how important are the physical dimension, gesture, and direct interaction with the audience?
Luca Longobardi: At the moment, live performance is the aspect I am most focused on, also as a reaction to the pandemic period. I have just completed the work on my new studio, a space that I conceived from the beginning with a precise purpose: to make music heard live. I find it pointless to advertise an instrument on Instagram with glossy videos full of post-production. It is one thing to be a testimonial who makes a product sound good in order to sell it, and quite another to provide the authentic experience of hearing that same instrument played live, here and now.
For me this issue is central. I am deeply unsettled when I receive messages on social media asking: “But do you play live?” The fact that such a question exists means that we have reached a point where it is normal for there to be “artists” who do not. In my view, many of them are not artists in the traditional sense of the word, but “curators” of their own project: figures who in the studio direct a sound engineer or a session musician, say “I like this, I do not like that,” and obtain a finished track. But then, live, what can they do? A producer who has finalized a track has nothing left to manipulate; whereas even when I use a sequence, there is always a dimension of live manipulation, of interaction with the sound.
Of course, there are different dimensions of performance. Take Caterina Barbieri, an artist I admire: hers is not a concert, but a theatrical performance, an immersive audiovisual experience. This is completely different from attending a performance by Jon Hopkins or Max Richter, who at a certain point sit down at the piano. There is a dimension tied to the “real,” physical instrument, which for me is indispensable.
This leads me to the concept I love most: “musical craftsmanship.” I prefer situations in which the act of making music is understandable, visible, tangible. For me, a piece is truly “finished” only when, if I turn off all the electronics, its essence still holds even with a single note played on the piano. This need for a physical connection with the instrument derives from my training, from eight hours a day of study at the conservatory. Even if today I can create an hours-long drone by manipulating pedal feedback, it is essential for me that at the base there is an idea that works in its purest form.
Ultimately, I undoubtedly prefer those types of projects in which this form of craftsmanship, in the live setting, is still clearly perceptible.
Question: With the evolution of performances toward increasingly immersive and interactive experiences, the role of the spectator is also being redefined. In this new ecosystem, what function does the audience take on for you? Do you still consider it a “passive” witness to whom a finished work is presented, or do you see it as an active component that manifests in different ways: an explorer who must move to discover the work, or even an element capable of influencing and shaping it in real time through presence and reactions?
Luca Longobardi: I completely agree. In my work, I no longer consider the audience a passive witness, but an active and fundamental component of the performative ecosystem. However, this transformation is not taken for granted; it must be stimulated and guided, beginning first of all with a problem of habit.
The first obstacle is that the audience, by convention, tends to behave as if they were at the cinema: they enter an immersive space and sit down, looking for a fixed point of view. This attitude is the exact opposite of the mode of experience for which the work is conceived. To overcome this passivity and transform the spectator into an explorer, I do not use instructions, but design solutions. For example, I install triangular mirror columns in the space that serve a dual purpose: first, they deliberately interrupt the view, physically forcing people to move in order to discover the work; second, by reflecting the audience within the projection, they make participants aware of their role, transforming them from observers into integral parts of the scene.
Once the audience becomes an active body inhabiting the space, we can move to an even deeper level of interaction, transforming it into an element capable of influencing the work. I have explored this dimension in different ways. In the past, I did so by transforming the audience’s phones into a distributed speaker system. Today, research is moving toward the use of artificial intelligence to analyze biometric data from the room, such as temperature and emotional state, and to use this information to modify my sound setup in real time, creating a genuine dialogue between the performance and the emotional reactions of the spectators.
However, it is essential to emphasize one condition that makes all this possible: at the foundation there must be a real performance. Authentic interaction can only exist if the artist on stage is engaged in an open creative act and not in the simple reproduction of a finished product. It is in this dialogue between a living performance and an aware audience that the true immersive experience is created.
Question: How important is the visual dimension for you in an immersive performance? Does immersivity derive solely from sound, or is it an experience in which the visual parameter also plays a fundamental role?
Luca Longobardi: To answer this question, I must begin with a fundamental premise, because there is a great deal of semantic confusion surrounding the word “immersive.”
For me, an immersive show, like those I create with my team, is a complex work in which the soundtrack, although crucial (the director I work with claims it makes up 60 percent of the experience), cannot exist without the image. It is a total and inseparable experience.
An immersive performance, on the other hand, has for me a very specific meaning: it is a musical performance that takes place within a 360-degree physical space, with projections that envelop the walls and also cover the floor. I don’t consider “immersive” a performance with a simple visual behind the artist (such as the beautiful shows by Max Cooper) or with a quadraphonic sound system. Immersivity is not an added effect but the very nature of the environment in which the event takes place.
With this distinction made, my answer is clear: in a true immersive performance, the visual dimension is absolutely fundamental, but it must be intrinsically connected to the sonic narrative. If the visual is not in deep harmony with the music, there are two risks: it either becomes a mere distraction, a device to mask a weak musical proposal, or, even worse, it prevents the audience from fully entering the emotional and interpretive dimension created by the sound.
Therefore, for me, immersivity does not derive solely from sound; it is a synesthetic experience in which the visual parameter, when used with coherence and intention within a truly immersive environment, plays an equally fundamental role.
Question: In a music industry dominated by streaming platforms and by fragmented, algorithm-driven listening, there is increasing talk of “algorithmic music,” created to accommodate these logics. How do you relate to this system? And how do you see the impact of the most recent technological force, Artificial Intelligence, on composition? Is it a limitation to experimentation, a risk, or an opportunity to be explored?
Luca Longobardi: Personally, I am not interested in these algorithmic logics. I have a pragmatic agreement with my distributor: occasionally I provide them with the “piano piece” that fits the trend of the moment, but in return I maintain complete freedom to write whatever I want. In my view, the real problem is not the algorithms themselves but the hegemony of platforms like Spotify. Theirs is a closed system: they manage the most influential playlists by promoting “fake artists,” created at a desk, making it nearly impossible for a real artist to enter certain circuits. In my opinion, this is a true fraud that damages the entire ecosystem.
Artificial Intelligence, in this context, is nothing more than the next step in a dynamic that has always existed. Today, tools like Suno or Aiva are simply replacing the human ghostwriters who were already producing this functional music. We must be honest: the applied music industry has always asked us to “copy.” When a client gives you Hans Zimmer or Philip Glass as a reference, they are not asking for an interpretation, they are asking for a copy. AI simply automates this request for imitation that composers have been receiving for decades. Complaining about it now is hypocrisy.
For this reason, I do not see AI as a risk but as a tool. If a client asks me for a job on a zero-budget film with impossible deadlines, I no longer invest my time in a demo. I use AI to generate a base, I rework it, and I deliver it. In this sense, technology helps us regain a minimum of professional dignity in the face of unsustainable working conditions. If the industry and part of the audience are satisfied with a standardized musical product, then the solution is simple: we must separate markets. Let us create platforms dedicated exclusively to AI-generated music, and let alternative spaces exist for those who, like us, want to continue making music in another way. I have no intention of competing with a prompt designer. The market has already changed, just look at producers who achieve gold records without knowing notes but by using samples and loops. We only need to acknowledge it and create the right distinctions.
Question: Let me ask you a blunt question: what gives the greatest value to a composition today? The final result, the quality of the sonic product regardless of how it was obtained, or the human process, with the effort, research, and intention it contains?
Luca Longobardi: If I am completely honest, my first reaction is purely instinctive: if something pleases me, it pleases me. Period. The immediate value of a composition lies in its final result and in the emotion it manages to convey. Only later does my curiosity as a musician come into play, pushing me to understand how it was made, and I am ready to appreciate the validity of any method, regardless of which one it is.
It is important to clarify that I do not have a closed attitude. If the purpose of a piece is to be a functional product for quick consumption, what I call “eaten and vomited”, then any technology, including AI, that makes it possible to create it effectively is welcome. There are artists who produce dozens of pieces a day with this model and derive income from it; it is a market logic that has its own validity, but it is simply different from mine.
My path is another: I have always taken a couple of years to make an album, and I chose not to tie myself to any label in order to be completely free to follow my artistic vision. This, however, does not mean being naïve. I am well aware that I must also earn a living. If my distributor were to contractually ask me to produce ten piano pieces, I would not refuse on principle. The piano is my main instrument, it is what the audience comes to hear, and it represents a fundamental part of my identity.
In the end, the real challenge lies in finding a balance: it is about being critical and intelligent in managing one’s own marketability and marketing, without ever selling out one’s artistic integrity.
Question: In your musical universe, the piano is often treated as a source to be sculpted, expanding its sound through electronics. How do you experience this dual relationship with the instrument, on the one hand its centuries-old and physical tradition, on the other its transformation into an almost abstract sonic material?
Luca Longobardi: The piano is a paradoxical instrument: its complexity derives precisely from its apparent simplicity. Unlike a clarinet, which requires a specific technique to produce a sound, the piano is so mechanical that even a cat walking on the keyboard produces something potentially interesting. It is this very accessibility that makes the search for a personal and meaningful sound an even greater challenge.
Personally, I have experienced with a certain unease the contrast between my academic training and contemporary aesthetics. At the conservatory you are taught for years to search for the “beautiful sound” on a grand piano, a touch that is rich and deep. Then, in today’s music market, you are confronted with the success of a completely different aesthetic: the muffled sound of an upright piano with felt, immersed in a kilo of reverb. It is a beautiful, soft sound, the kind you hear in the records of Nils Frahm, Bruno Bavota, or even in my own works. However, having become a standard, it risks flattening sonic identity.
This led me to a fundamental reflection: when sound design is predictable or homogenized, then the notes, in other words the musical thought, must make the difference in order to stand out. Conversely, if the musical thought is simple or minimalist, then sound design must be refined and unique. It is in this balance that an artist can find a recognizable voice; otherwise the risk is simply to “do what everyone else does.”
To resolve this duality in my work, I found a practical solution in my new studio: I have two pianos. On the one hand, an upright piano with felt, which I use as a sonic palette to be sculpted with layers of effects. On the other, a grand piano, which I reserve for a more classical repertoire or for cleaner and more defined sounds.
This choice allows me, every time I sit down to compose, to ask myself which “voice” of the instrument I want to use: do I remove the mute? Do I insert the felt? Do I move the microphones closer? A piano has a thousand voices, and choosing one is the essence of artistic decision. In the end, whether one uses a real instrument or a VST, what matters is the finished product and the honesty with which it is presented. Claiming to have recorded a VST with five microphones at night is a lie; true art lies in making a sonic choice and carrying it through with coherence and intention.