ELIA
A tribute to the Italian artist Alessandro Greggio ‘Elia’ (1968–2005), this new collaboration between saxophonist Tom Scott and myself is both a nod to Elia's spontaneous, witty approach to life and a gesture of respect for the vibrant and profound nature of his artistic work.
The album is particularly inspired by an anecdote Elia once shared with me: having prepared nothing for his final degree show, he arrived before the examiners carrying a small wooden gate he had found in a nearby hallway. He left the gate untouched and presented it as his final piece—framed entirely as a story.
Drawing from this spirit, I composed the music by tracing the letters E, L, I, and A over a selection of short stories Elia wrote in the 1990s. The resulting graphic patterns were superimposed onto a musical score, which Tom Scott then interpreted in a single take—without having seen it beforehand.
What emerged was a blend of unexpected shifts, unplanned repetitions, and surprisingly meditative stretches. The tracks on this album are the pure, unedited outcome of a single studio session—an attempt to map and intertwine the emotional currents of Elia’s way of being: his instinctive gestures, his embrace of chance, and his refusal to separate life from art.