Giovanni Sollima, cellist and composer, was born in Palermo in 1962 in a family of musicians. He obtained a diploma in playing the cello and composition from the Conservatory in his home town and completed his studies at Salzburg and Stuttgart. At an extremely early age he started a brilliant international career as a cellist along with Franco Ferrara, Claudio Abbado, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Jorg Demus and Martha Argerich. At the same time his creative curiosity drove him to explore new frontiers in the field of composition, through the mixing of different genres: rock, jazz, electronic, Anglo-Saxon minimalism and ethnic music from the entire Mediterranean area, from Sicily to the Arab world, from the Balkans to Israel, from Turkey to Andalusia. Sollima's inimitable style was born on the basis of extensive classical training and in his creations he makes use of Western and Eastern acoustic instruments, electric and electronic instruments and other instruments he has invented (the aquilarco, the d-touch, the body-cello....) or which he has reconstructed, like in the tenor violin depicted in Caravaggio's pictures. He lives between the cities of Palermo, Berlin and New York. His compositions have been performed all over the world, interpreted by conductors of the calibre of Riccardo Muti from the Scala Philarmonic, Gidon Kremer from the Kremerata Baltica, Yuri Bashmet from the Moscow Soloists, Daniele Gatti from the Bologna Town Theatre Orchestra, Ivan Fischer from the Orchestra of the Academy of Saint Cecilia, Rome; soloists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Viktoria Mullova, Mario Brunello, Bruno Canino, Katia Labeque, Enrico Dindo, Julius Berger, David Geringas, Larry Coryell and Mauro Pagani; singers such as Ruggero Raimondi, Patti Smith, Vinicio Capossela, Morgan, Edoardo Bennato and Elisa (protagonist of his work Ellis Island, based on the text of Roberto Alajmo, commissioned by the Teatro Massimo, Palermo); choreographers like Karole Armitage, Bebe Miller, Fabrizio Monteverde, Micha van Hoecke and Carolyn Carlson. At the Venice Biennial, the latter made Giovanni play on the stage among dancers, thus using his scenic charisma to good advantage.
As far as the cinema and television he has worked with Marco Tullio Giordana (I cento passi, La meglio gioventù), Peter Greenaway (The Tulse Luper Suitcases), Maurizio Zaccaro (Il bell'Antonio, RaiUno) and Franco Battiato ("Bitte Keine Reklame", RaiDue). In 2006 Peter Greenaway used his music for the big display set up in Amsterdam to celebrate the fourth centenary of Rembrandt's birth and selected him as the creator of the soundtrack of the film released in autumn: Nightwatching. In the theatre he has collaborated with Bob Wilson (Imagining Prometheus in Syracuse and Milan), Alessandro Baricco (City Reading Project at the Teatro Valle in Rome and Iliade all at the Rome Auditorium and at the Turin Lingotto), Peter Stein (Medea, translated by Dario Del Corno, on tour in Italy and Greece) and Lamberto Puggelli (The Leopard, with Turi Ferro). As a soloist and with various instrumental groups (including the Giovanni Sollima Band, founded by him in New York), Giovanni Sollima has been performing his music all over the world since 1995. There were two memorable performances with Patti Smith at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, in 2006. His career unfolds in prestigious venues and alternative scenes, close to the younger and borderline public: Brooklyn Academy of Music and Merkin Hall, New York, Wigmore Hall, London, Salle Gaveau, Paris, Kunstfest, Weimar, Kronberg Festival, Frankfurt, Munsterhof, Strasbourg, Kuopio Festival, Finland, International Music Festival, Istanbul and the Summer Festival, Tokyo. Among Giovanni Sollima's numerous compact discs, mention should be made of Aquilarco, made in 1998 for Point Music/PolyGram, at the invitation of Philip Glass. This ensemble work has been used numerous times in the ballet world in Italy and other countries (Festival La Versiliana, Teatro Real, Madrid, The Kitchen, New York, The Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, The Pennsylvania Ballet of Philadelphia, The San Francisco Ballet, Les Ballets Jazz of Montreal...). In 2005 Works was released by Sony. Among other things, this album also includes the main pieces of Giovanni's last project for ensembles: Songs From the Divine Comedy. In 2007 he acted and played in the short film, DayDream, made by the 22-year-old Norwegian director, Lasse Gjertsen, the rising star of the new digital cinema and a true YouTube star. He is currently working on a sacred cantata for soloists, a choir and an orchestra, of Byzantine inspiration, commissioned by Riccardo Muti and by the Orchestra Cherubini for the 2008 Ravenna Festival, and on various recording projects, including a second album for Sony in which Patti Smith and the young Croatian cellist, Monika Leskovar, will take part. Giovanni Sollima's compositions are published by Casa Musicale Sonzogno - www.sonzogno.it - of Milan.
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