Alessandro Chiantoni is 27 years old, lives in Bergamo, and began studying piano at the age of 6. Since then, music has always been a part of his life, and he has never abandoned it. He, therefore, owes a great deal to the piano and to his first conservatory teacher, Tiziana Moneta, who provided him with a solid foundation that he still relies on today. Alessandro himself says that he will never be able to thank her enough for believing in him from the start.
He began playing the organ at about 12 years old on his own; now, he has graduated from the three-year course in Organ and Organ Composition and completed the two-year course under the guidance of Simone Vebber, an excellent Organ teacher at the Bergamo Conservatory.
In 2020, he was appointed titular organist of the church of Sant'Anna in Bergamo, and to gain experience in the organ world outside of Italy, he has attended many courses with important foreign organists; this is fundamental because there is nothing like having direct experience of things to understand them and draw a lesson from them. He considers himself fortunate to be a musician and to play for others, but at the same time, he is passionate about composition, as it is one of the ways he expresses himself. He has developed a passion for designing new instruments, including an organ that can be used for both study and concerts, a unique and innovative instrument with a completely different concept compared to the instruments currently present in our territory.
He was named the best student of the 2020 Masterclass. It was a fantastic course during which he met excellent organists, of whom he says: "I was thrilled to be the best, but the others were certainly no less. It was a wonderful experience that enriched me from both a musical and human perspective, where Art was at the center of everything. I am delighted to have been invited to Costa Valle Imagna this year and to have the opportunity to be able to express myself on such a beautiful organ."
To achieve these results, he says, "You have to be serious, with yourself and with others, be constant in studying, and never spare yourself to overcome your limits finally. When studying music, you must have discipline; otherwise, you will waste many hours without achieving results. It is not easy, but it is necessary; it is something you learn in the conservatory because, without seriousness and method, it is impossible to complete your studies. With the organ in particular, you always have to question yourself; each instrument is different in many characteristics, and each time, the organist has to adapt to the instrument itself, which becomes the most important teacher; for this reason, when you study, you always have to listen to yourself with a critical ear and adapt what you are doing to the instrument you are playing and the acoustics where it is located." He studied with Jean-Baptiste Monnot, thanks to whom he developed self-awareness and the ability to express his ideas with strength, even in music. Always from his words, "This becomes the key to overcoming the technical and expressive difficulties of the songs. Music never comes from outside but is born from within the human soul, and we must find the right way to express it. We live in a world where we call "art" anything that generates an immediate sensation in us; in reality, authentic Art is the fruit of a conflict that a sensitive soul translates, not without effort, into an interior artistic act. Awareness is the engine that drives the artist to find a way to express their interiority, and this arises from a personal need. Not all musicians are artists because playing notes all in a row does not constitute Art if those notes come from nothing and do not communicate anything."
I propose a video that illustrates the difficulty of playing this type of organ to be broadcast live in streaming on August 27, 2020. Bergamo was the Italian city most affected by the Coronavirus, so Alessandro Chiantoni organized a live concert in the church of Sant'Anna, entirely dedicated to improvisational Art. Alessandro proposes some improvisations in different styles to the wonderful organ built by the Serassi brothers.