#3 - A Conversation with Federico Albanese
Introduction
This interview is part of 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 investigates how today’s creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, and performance, and how their artistic practices intertwine with technology, aesthetics, and the changing dynamics of the music industry.
In this conversation we meet Federico Albanese, composer, pianist, and producer, whose music is characterised by a highly personal language that merges classical heritage, electronic textures, and cinematic sensibility. Over the course of his career, Albanese has developed a writing style that weaves together minimalism, post-rock, ambient, and contemporary classical influences, with a consistent focus on timbre, space, and production as compositional tools.
In the following pages, Albanese retraces his musical background and the diverse aesthetic influences that have shaped his language, focusing particularly on the role of sound design and production as inseparable dimensions of musical writing. The interview also addresses the transformations brought about by the recording industry and digital platforms, highlighting both the challenges and the opportunities they present to those who today pursue experimentation and the search for new languages. His reflections provide concrete insights into central issues such as the hybrid identity of the composer, the relationship between authorship and production, and the value of craftsmanship in the creative process, offering a vivid portrait of what it means to compose in the present time.
Date of interview: 17 July 2025
Question: Today, people often talk about a hybrid figure of composer, producer, and performer. Do you recognise yourself in this description, and in what way do these three dimensions coexist in your work?
Federico Albanese: Yes, I definitely recognise myself in that definition. I come from the “Napster generation”, a time when the idea of selling records or going to a studio as the only option had already disappeared. Of course, studios still existed, but there was nothing surrounding them: the only thing that really mattered was performance. My musical identity was shaped in an environment where you simply played, where the main goal was to get on stage and make music, whatever form it took.
For this reason, paradoxically, I would say I started out more as a performer, with a kind of “punk” attitude, playing everywhere and without too many rules. The more technical and academic side of things, study and specialization, came only later. Today I see many younger musicians, people in their twenties or even thirties who are ten years younger than me, starting out with a different, more structured approach. My generation instead went through that transition, and I believe there are many others, besides myself, who recognise themselves in this path.
Question: Which composers, musical movements, or even just sonic aesthetics from the past do you feel you have absorbed most deeply? In other words, which languages have left a mark on your journey and on the way you think about music?
Federico Albanese: I started playing as a teenager, on bass, guitar, in different bands. I was passionate about punk rock, then about rock and pop. I played a bit of everything. At the same time, I always cultivated a deep interest in other forms of music. In the 1990s, for example, I regularly bought an Italian magazine called New Age, which came with cassettes and later CDs that featured a wide variety of music, often impossible to categorise. There you could find everything from Michael Nyman to Philip Glass, from William Basinski with his tape experiments to more radical works. For me it was almost like a secret, a hidden passion. I was fascinated by that world which did not fit into canonical categories.
I studied piano as a child, but my mother did not want me to enter the conservatory. She disliked that environment and preferred that I attend a public classical high school. So I left formal studies and continued on my own, developing a sensibility that mixed punk, rock, classical music and, above all, contemporary music.
In truth, it was this combination of experiences that shaped my language. I absorbed a great deal from classical and contemporary music, a lot from that “New Age” world understood as experimentation, and a great deal from punk and rock, which are based on a more spontaneous and less predetermined approach. It is not so much a precise idea of a piece that guides you, but rather an attitude. That attitude pushes you to do things you might not do if you thought about them too much.
For me, the fundamental difference compared to twentieth-century music is exactly this: today it is not only the piece itself that matters, but the way you make it. I think of Jóhann Jóhannsson, but also of artists like Nils Frahm or Ólafur Arnalds. Identity does not reside solely in the score, but in how you build the sound, in the technical and timbral research that accompanies the composition. It is a non-academic approach, born from listening and from attention to sound.
My good fortune was not having attended the conservatory. Had I received a more academic training, I probably would not be able to do what I do today, because it would not feel natural. Many of my classical musician friends are surprised by some of the solutions I adopt, precisely because they do not come from canonical writing but from an approach based on the ear and on experimentation. Every stage of the sound thus becomes an artisanal act, a process of care and exploration, from placing microphones with millimetric precision to shaping the entire sonic environment. It is a form of craftsmanship that cannot be found in books, but is born from attitude and from listening.
Question: When you compose music for images, do you find yourself using the same approaches or strategies that you apply in 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?
Federico Albanese: When you work on a film score, or more generally on a project that is not entirely your own, you inevitably place yourself at the service of an existing idea. I do not see this as a compromise but rather as an act of adherence: you are serving a project conceived by someone else. When you make a record, instead, you begin with your own concept, you create a sonic world that belongs to you and that may take months or even years to construct. In film or theatre, that world is handed to you already defined, and the approach immediately changes, because you are no longer fully in control but working within another person’s vision.
The key lies here: the best works are born when there is a true fusion between director and composer, a mutual artistic coherence. I think, for example, of Arrival and the relationship between Jóhann Jóhannsson and Denis Villeneuve. The music works because both were serving the film’s idea, and this artistic alignment can be felt.
My approach is therefore different from when I compose for myself. In personal projects I always start from sound, from a timbral choice or from a clear idea of how a piece should resonate. In film, I do not think in these terms straight away. I work by layering: I record the piano in a visceral way, search for hidden sounds, use tape, slow down or stretch the material, overdub, change pitch. I add one element at a time, as if I were building a wall without knowing how tall it will be. At some point, almost magically, everything falls into place. This process, made even more fascinating by the unpredictability of analogue tools, is very similar to what Jóhannsson often did, working with tape and creating happy accidents that became decisive ideas.
When I am asked to work in film, it is usually because directors, editors, or producers already know my music and want precisely that sound. Since I did not begin as a “film composer”, I do not accept every project. If I feel my language would not fit, I prefer to decline. In other cases, I let myself be drawn in even when I know the music required is not exactly in my natural register, because the project itself excites me.
In cinema, everything is unpredictable and constantly changing. You may start in one direction and then realise, during editing, that an entirely different sonic world is needed. This is what happened with Last Swim: I had composed several piano themes, and the director Sasha initially found them perfect. But once the film was edited, it became clear that something else was needed, and those themes became only the starting point, about ten per cent of the final work.
This is why I try to be involved as early as possible, even just by reading the script. I believe that writing music for images is ten per cent composition and ninety per cent everything else: psychology, technical skills, communication. If you join the process early, you can make a truly narrative contribution rather than simply doing damage control. In that case, the music becomes an integral part of the dramaturgy, an invisible actor participating in the story.
Question: A slightly more technical question: do you use any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)? Does it play an important role in your creative process?
Federico Albanese: From a compositional point of view, I do not really need it. My use of software such as Pro Tools or Cubase is limited to the purely technical phases of the work: editing, cutting, pasting, assembling and reassembling. I probably use them at only a fraction of their real potential, but I am not interested in going further. I have never been a gear nerd; I became passionate only about specific tools, developing targeted knowledge of what I truly needed, but my approach does not originate from software.
I acknowledge that for many composers, including those in contemporary classical music, programmes such as Ableton are genuine creative instruments. That is not the case for me. Only now, at the age of 43, am I learning to be more organised, and in this respect DAWs are certainly useful, but I would not define them as the core of my creative process.
As far as writing is concerned, I make a clear distinction. If I have an idea or a sketch, I quickly record it on my phone. But the moment I start working seriously, for instance by microphoning the piano, I do not stop. It becomes a mission to complete that piece, regardless of where it may end up.
Question: A practical question: if you had to create a drone, a continuous, static sound mass in slow evolution, for example to score a scene where a protagonist is walking through a snowy and silent landscape, where the sound should amplify a feeling of emptiness and suspension, where would you start from?
Federico Albanese: I would start from the piano. I would probably create a slightly unusual chord, perhaps a diminished one, held for a long time, which I would then record onto tape and lower by twelve semitones. In this way the sound transforms and becomes almost a sonic landscape in itself. The beauty of tape lies precisely in its unpredictability: from a two or three-minute recording, particular harmonics emerge that you can isolate, sample, and reuse as the basis for new chords.
Then I would work on space. I do not rely only on reverbs, because I am passionate about rooms. I am fortunate to live in a very large house with unique and spacious areas: a hall of more than one hundred square metres, which used to be the village ballroom, and a cellar that I use as an echo chamber. I place speakers and microphones in different points and exploit the natural acoustics of the environment. Working with the environment is something I enjoy much more.
When necessary, of course, I also use creative reverbs. However, I find emulative ones that are too perfect a bit boring. I prefer generative reverbs such as Valhalla, which have their own personality, or hardware devices with a unique character. I have two tape delays and an old Midiverb from the early 1990s with a Hall preset (number 22) that has an extraordinary sound. These are objects that add a sonic texture and an unpredictability that modern plugins, too clean and precise, simply do not provide.
I have also learned a lot from observing Francesco Donadello, who often works with a large EMT plate reverb capable of giving a grain and a character difficult to achieve otherwise. These tools, with their imperfections, make the sound more alive and interesting.
Question: Looking more closely at the relationship between composition and production, do you consider production, timbral choices, sound design, mixing, as a phase separate from writing, or as an integral part of the creative act itself?
Federico Albanese: For me they are completely connected: they move in the same direction and do not exist as separate elements. The productive and compositional aspects coincide. Making a demo or a sketch to remember an idea is one thing, but when it comes to writing a real piece I do not conceive of any division between writing and production.
I am not like the classical pianist who walks into the studio, plays, and leaves. My work is different: it is an ongoing research process based on sound design. I even reach almost obsessive moments, reopening a mix just because I hear a noise that should not be there. Perhaps there are six hundred others across the track, but that particular detail does not work. It is almost an obsession, I admit, but it is part of the way I conceive musical writing.
Part of my research concerns the development of a theoretical model, a sort of expanded score, designed to describe not only the notes but also production choices (timbre, spatialization, processing) as structural elements of the compositional thought process. In this perspective, the idea would be to imagine a multidimensional form of writing, one that considers not only thematic development but also elaboration and mixing as integral parts of a single creative gesture, a way of thinking that, in fact, many contemporary composers already seem to embrace. Do you think it makes sense to translate this approach into a shared model? And have you ever felt the need to annotate such aspects in some form, even non-conventional, within your own writing?
Federico Albanese: Personally, I don’t think such a system is necessary; I wouldn’t find it useful. I believe the beauty of contemporary music lies precisely in its unpredictability, in the curiosity it arouses in the listener, and in the desire to discover how a sound was created. This is difficult to translate into a system, because music, at least for me, and I believe for many composers of my generation, is profoundly personal, bound to one’s own experience, and therefore not easily codifiable.
As you said, many composers today already think in multidimensional terms: not only about thematic development but also about elaboration, layering, and all those elements that converge into a single creative gesture, often even unconsciously. If in your research you managed to interview twenty or thirty composers and identify common patterns, that could serve as a starting point to elaborate a shared model.
For me, however, it’s not so much a matter of graphics or semiography as it is about acknowledging the craftsmanship inherent in every stage: writing, processing, mixing. Each of these steps carries its own artistic and narrative value. I think, for example, of the soundtracks by Jóhann Jóhannsson: in Prisoners, Arrival, or Sicario you can hear his entire soul and character; the same is true for Hildur Guðnadóttir. This personal presence, this “having something to say,” is, for me, the essential first step.
At the same time, having a modular and variable system could indeed prove useful, especially for facilitating communication with other figures involved, such as a mixing engineer or a conductor. Today, the composer is often also a producer and sound engineer, which inevitably leads to a hybrid language. A technical choice, such as adding a delay to a piano, can radically transform a piece, opening up unexpected possibilities. Instrumental music, more than pop music, lends itself to this kind of experimentation, because it is not bound to rigid structures like verses and choruses.
Question: Concerning the spatial dimension, which is widely discussed today also at a discographic level with Dolby Atmos mixes, do you find yourself thinking in terms of three-dimensional space already in the compositional phase, or do you consider spatialisation as something to be applied at the end?
Federico Albanese: I am not a big fan of Atmos. We have two ears, and I believe that music is fundamentally a stereo experience. Atmos, to me, feels mostly like a commercial gimmick. Apple has imposed the idea that you need to deliver a master in that format in order to gain more visibility, but it does not always make sense. When I am asked to create an Atmos mix for a record that was conceived in stereo, I find it pointless and prefer not to do it.
That said, Atmos is clearly an interesting and entertaining technology. The point is that a project needs to be conceived in that way from the very beginning. If you know you will have access to an immersive system, you can consider it as an integral part of the compositional and production process. Precisely because sound design and production are inseparable from writing, knowing that you can work with a three-dimensional space leads you to build arrangements designed for that kind of diffusion.
A concrete example: I recently composed a piece for a contemporary artist who created a large video installation at the Fotografiska Museum in Shanghai, which will be inaugurated in September. In that case, as soon as I sketched the first ideas, I immediately asked about the technical setup. When I saw in the specifications that Atmos was included, I thought of involving Francesco Donadello to explore the possibility of mixing in that format, since the work was intended for such a large and specific space. In the end, we did not go through with it, because it would have been too complicated to replicate in Europe the same speaker mapping planned in Shanghai, but that would have been a truly interesting context in which to think about immersive spatialisation from the outset.
Question: Your music is sometimes placed under the label “neoclassical”. It is a historically imprecise term but one that is widely used today, bringing together many artists. Do you identify with this definition, or do you see it as a limiting simplification?
Federico Albanese: The term “neoclassical” was coined in a somewhat forced way. In reality, it has little to do with the classical tradition. If we think of the twentieth century, from Stravinsky to John Cage, the avant-garde had already broken away from that language. It was mainly the recording industry, particularly in Germany, that grouped different artists under this label, for reasons of promotion and sales.
Categorisations always end up being temporary. I write music, and then there is a whole business that needs to place it and sell it, and therefore invents labels such as modern classical or neoclassical. That work belongs more to the industry than to the artist.
I come from a generation in which the artist was simply an artist, not a manager, publisher, or label executive. Today we are more or less forced to do all of these things. For this reason, on the one hand I do not mind being described as “neoclassical”: it can even be flattering, because it means being associated with important figures. But it is not a term I use to describe myself. When I introduce myself or talk about my work in an interview, I never choose that definition.
Question: Regarding the recording industry and the logic of streaming platforms, where listening is often quick and guided by algorithms, how do you position yourself in your work? To what extent do you think this system limits the possibility of musical research and experimentation?
Federico Albanese: It is a question that would take two hours to answer, because the issue is very complex. On the one hand, streaming platforms have saved the record industry: nobody was buying records anymore, just as nobody went to the cinema when films were being downloaded illegally. Streaming made a musical economy possible again. This is a positive aspect.
On the other hand, the system certainly limits creativity, especially for those starting out today. I already have a career behind me that allows me to experiment outside the established frameworks, but young musicians are crushed by the spectre of streams, which must be high in order to gain credibility. In contemporary piano music in particular, there has been a boom of derivative pieces, often generated with artificial intelligence or produced directly by the platforms to feed heavily followed playlists. There are artists who have never given a concert and yet are signed simply because one of their tracks went viral thanks to algorithms.
The positive side is that without a label or a manager, today you can publish your own music and still have the chance to earn something and be heard. The negative side is that this produces an endless cauldron of music that all sounds the same, with the same harmonic progressions, with the same textures. In this context, even a piece conceived and worked on for years risks getting lost and drowned in the mass.
Record labels, consequently, give more importance to how many times a track enters a major playlist than to a review in Pitchfork, Mojo or Rolling Stone. In the past, the press and radio stations acted as opinion leaders, capable of launching artists and giving them credibility. I think of Classic Fm, which contributed to the success of Ludovico Einaudi. Today that world no longer exists.
I am somewhat nostalgic for that period, even though I naturally operate within the current industry, under contract with a major label. The large platforms are publicly listed companies, interested in numbers rather than quality. For them, a piano track is simply a piano with a microphone in front of it, without considering that behind it there may be years of artisanal work on sound.
It is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, thanks to Spotify we pay our bills. On the other, we find ourselves inside a system that does not value at all the artisanal work, the timbral and production research, because most listening happens through smartphones and earbuds. For those of us who dedicate ourselves to sound design and production with meticulous care, this is an obvious limitation.
Acknowledgements
I warmly thank Federico Albanese for generously sharing his time, reflections, and creative process. His openness has been essential in shaping this conversation within The Sonic Atelier - Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers.
By Francesca Guccione