Biography

Biography

If I’m a musician today, it’s not just by chance. I was born on February 15th, 1959 in Rome. My father, Alberto Mario d’Ettorre, was a doctor and the youngest of twelve brothers. In Vasto he grew in a family hailing from Abruzzo that appreciated and practiced music, poetry and art. My mother, Nella d’Albergo, came from Milan but her family had sicilian origins. They were all professional men and my grandfather, Ernesto d’Albergo, has been an important economist known for a lot of distinguished publications.  Since my childhood I have admired a grandfather unknown for me, Temistocle d’Ettorre, panel doctor, because to the ordinary profession combined that of researcher, poet and amateur musician. From 1913 to 1943 local and regional newspapers and medical magazines often published articles on his studies on how to treat pneumonia, tuberculosis, scarlet and smallpox, all diseases that killed thousands of people. Unfortunately his merits haven’t been recognised and today it remains a volume of poems and about fifteen chamber music pieces for piano. Two of them were published by Maddaloni Editors in Napoli. Between the 1920s and the 1930s in d’Ettorre’s family there have been many musicians like Ernesto d’Ettorre, Temistocles’s sixth son. He studied with Carlo Zecchi at the Conservatory of Pesaro where Bajardi taught and appreciated them very much. He composed several piano pieces of excellent quality, unfortunately lost, and died only 25 years.  

Some of the other twelve brothers studied or cultivated music. One of them was Alberto, that was also an early and promising painter and drawer but his life was snuffed only 17 years.

I was raised a creative environment and my father, that wrote poems and played the piano, wanted to convey this spiritual heritage by attending with him the concert halls and the Teatro dell’Opera. So I started studying music when I was 8 because I showed an early interest in it. I chose the guitar just because at that time the packs of the most famous candy brands provided nice guitars-toy and they were my passion (guitars, not candies).

Modesto Ricchi, my first teacher, was very pleased with me soon and two years after he drove me to take part in a competition for young guitarists in Recanati.

When I was 10 I won the first prize of my category playing “Feste Lariane” by Mozzani, a very demanding musical track for my age because it required the “tremolo” technique. The event excited a lot my mother (she studied piano when she was a girl), and my father that saw in me a prosecution of his family tradition.

In the next few years I made 12 more youth competitions in Recanati, Desenzano del Garda, Montesilvano and Ancona and I won the first prize eight times, the second twice and the third prize once.

My family went always with me everywhere with great sacrifice especially for my little sister Silvia.

With my weekly pocket money I bought the Segovia’s Long Playing, and thanks to my father’s records and the constant listening of the radio programs I expanded my musical horizons.

I have joined classical studies to readings on contemporary musicology developing interest, enthusiasm and personal opinions.

Even though for a long time I said I would be a doctor myself too and in particular the dentist, after the age of sixteen I understood that I was interested in something else. I had achieved great results at competitions, made my first solo concerts and I was already author of various guitar pieces.

We had to take note of this state of affairs and to give up the concreteness of a medical study and to follow the artistic vein that from my ancestors had come to me and it had lived in the private sphere of my family life.

Today I’m a Conservatory Professor and I love my work. I thank my family for having supported my nature and I regret that my father has not been able to know the final outcomes of his efforts.

I live in Rome with Francesca, my life partner, a harpist, and with Paloma, our cat.

I have two beautiful grandchildren with obvious artistic esteem to confirm that the appreciation of what is beautiful already passes into the blood, in the veins.

Among my passions are Tuscany, where I spend most of my vacations, the mountain where I love to go back often and good food to which my mother got me used to.

I like reading essays, writing texts and various articles, applying to music in various ways, going to concerts and to theatre.

Reaching maturity, I am convinced that music is the metaphor of life that summarizes the characteristics of our existence and is associated with it.

I am convinced that the projects built on music enhance the expressive potential and reinforce the artistic message.

I commit myself to be a narrator of music, or with the music, for the life.