Born in Venice, Italy, pianist Roberto Poli enjoys an international career as a performer, but is also involved in writing books and poetry, and in painting. Some ascribe his eclectic activity to the patrimony of inspiration that he derived from his native city. While he does not dismiss it as a possibility, he mainly credits the irreplaceable experiences of his childhood and adolescence, a period spent in contact with extraordinary artists in various disciplines among his close relatives, and whose influence he deems fundamental – from his grandfathers Guido Bullo and Mario Poli (the former a master wood carver, the latter a poet) to his great-uncle Pietro Rosa (a prominent venetian painter).
Heard as a soloist on both piano and harpsichord, and as a chamber musician and conductor, Roberto Poli’s North American debut was described by the press as “pure magic”. Similar assessments have been expressed in cities such as Rome, Paris, New York, Dublin, Seoul, Brussels, and wherever he travels. Despite a large repertoire that spans four and a half centuries of keyboard literature, Mr. Poli is emerging as an eloquent communicator of the music of Frederic Chopin, which he has extensively studied through manuscripts and early editions and has widely performed throughout the world. The center of his current interest is the recording of Chopin’s complete works. Mr. Poli’s celebration of Chopin also includes the publication of his first book, The Secret Life of Musical Notation: defying interpretive traditions (Amadeus Press, October 2010), which presents new insights into the composer’s music. Featuring discoveries based on the analysis of Chopin’s manuscripts and early editions, the book is a volume on pianistic interpretation that provides a new scholarly and practical vision of the composer’s works. Mr. Poli is also the founder and Artistic Director of The Chopin Symposium, a yearly event held at the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, Massachusetts (USA). The symposium gathers world-renowned guest performers, pedagogues and lecturers such as Jim Samson, Jeffrey Kallberg, Alan Walker and Russell Sherman.
Mr. Poli had the privilege of studying for over a decade with Giorgio Vianello, a pupil of Busoni’s disciple Gino Tagliapietra, graduating from the Venice Conservatory of Music summa cum laude and honors in 1993. His studies continued under Piero Rattalino and Eugenio Bagnoli, and during stimulating summer sessions with musicians of the caliber of Philippe Cassard, Tatyana Zelickman, Vladimir Tropp, Bruno Giuranna and Ilya Grubert. Between 1994 and 1996, his main inspiration was his work with Boris Petrushansky at the Piano Academy Incontri col Maestro in Imola, Italy.
In May 1996, while performing in Japan, Roberto Poli received a phone call that changed his life: he was requested to return immediately to Italy to serve his country, and was stationed at a Bosnian refugee camp at the outskirts of Italy’s border with Croatia, shortly after the war in Bosnia came to an end. It was a period of hardship in which his performing activity came to a nearly complete halt. This hiatus from the concert platform was nevertheless a crucial period of growth in which writing and poetry became an alternative vehicle of expression. It is during this time that his first essays on music and a series of poems depicting the life of the Bosnian refugees and the experiences lived during those months took shape.
As his duties came to an end Roberto Poli traveled to North America, invited by the Gina Bachauer Foundation to participate in their 1998 International Piano Competition. The success at the event prompted an unexpected outcome: on a very short notice, at the end of July of that year he was offered a full scholarship to attend the New England Conservatory of Music and follow the great artistry of legendary pianist Russell Sherman – an unprecedented situation at that institution. In August, Roberto Poli moved to Boston and made the United States his home. Under Sherman’s guidance, he received a Master’s Degree with artistic distinction and academic honors, and the prestigious Artist Diploma – a highly selective degree reserved only to a handful of candidates each year.
Roberto Poli’s critically acclaimed debut recording, Shall we dance..., was released in 2002 by Americus Records, and features his own transcription of Maurice Ravel’s La Valse for solo piano, along with other unusual selections such as Sergio Fiorentino’s transcription of Waltzes from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and works by Elizabethan composers. A second album, released in 2008 by Onclassical, features Franz Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage - Deuxième Année: Italie. Over the last fifteen years, Roberto Poli has been an indefatigable proponent of Elizabethan masters such as John Bull, William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons, programming their works extensively both in Europe and the United States. In addition to reviving Elizabethan music, Roberto Poli is also recognized for restoring original practices of the Classical era in his performances of Haydn and Mozart, featuring improvised embellishments and cadenzas in Concerti and solo works.
Roberto Poli is an enthusiastic sought-after teacher and lecturer. He holds positions at the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, Massachusetts, where he is Artist in Residence and Chair of the Piano Department, and at the New England Conservatory’s Preparatory School, teaching a select group of talented pupils. He also enjoys a busy schedule of solo and chamber recitals, concerto appearances, masterclasses and lectures around the world.