Ingrid Carbone has been interviewed by Elisa Alloro on Emilia Web Radio during the talk “No Chattering”. You can listen to the full interview (in italian) here>>

Here’s a translated transcription of the interview.

Today at No Chattering, we’re trying to understand where and how the alchemy between rigor and inspiration arises. We’re in the company of Ingrid Carbone.
An internationally awarded pianist, a researcher in mathematical analysis, and the creator of the concert-conversations: a format that blends storytelling and music and has conquered Europe, Canada, South America, and the Middle East. These concert-conversations have become your signature. How did they come about? What was the spark that made you realize that music needed to be told, not just performed?

I can pinpoint that moment precisely in time and space. It was in China, in the spring of 2019, during a long trip to several cities, including Wuhan, where I was giving piano lectures for teachers and future piano teachers. There, I was asked a very specific question, one that rarely comes in the West: to present, via PowerPoint, topics such as music pedagogy in Italy, Baroque music, and Romantic music.

In that context, I realized that going to the piano, explaining, and delving into the details of my personal experience and my vision of the pieces worked.
That format came about completely naturally, but it immediately seemed necessary to me: to help people understand the structure of a piece, the possible interpretative choices, and the reasons for one decision rather than another.

The audience was very diverse, not specialized: not a conservatory, not a university. And it worked. Once back in Italy, at the first available opportunity, I proposed to the organizers to transform the concert into a conversation-concert, a meeting of this kind.

Incredible. Having brought this project to very different cultures, what was the most unexpected audience you encountered?

Precisely in China. Perhaps one of the audiences most distant from us, culturally. We grow up immersed in music: in films, everywhere. Yet it worked there. Then in Italy, and subsequently everywhere else.

The pandemic also arrived, let’s not forget. I continued from home, at charity events and online concerts. The response was there. And it was the moment when these two worlds—the scientific laboratory and the stage—rather than clashing, began to communicate. Among other things, that was also a period of great record production. Shut in at home, I began an even more in-depth study of the score.
I asked myself questions I’d never asked before, or at least not with this intensity. It was the moment I realized that my scientific mind, accustomed to working with structure and analysis, wasn’t an impediment to my art, but an added value.

Your repertoire is known for its intensity and interpretative clarity, almost a scientific pursuit of detail. When you prepare a concert, what is the guiding element: emotion or structure?

It’s a complex question. The work behind a concert is long: I bring to the stage pieces I’ve been working on for months. However, I believe that emotion and structure are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. The structure must be crystal clear, viewed with clarity and attention. I do this with an analytical, deductive, scientific approach. This profound understanding of the structure—and of what I imagine the composer’s intention was—naturally guides the interpretative choices. There’s an intuitive feeling, of course, but you have to be careful: the risk is making anachronistic choices, inconsistent with the period, the style, the instruments of the time. So both dimensions coexist. Perhaps it’s my double: a passionate artist on the one hand, a need for control on the other.

An interesting combination.

Critics have often emphasized this, to my delight, highlighting my mathematical training and academic work. A mind that, for some, transcends the score.

In an age where everything must be immediate, how do you cultivate the longevity of music and research?

I’ve never aligned myself with this speed and superficiality that is swallowing us up. My work today is the same as before: it’s built calmly, over time, without haste. This is the message I try to convey during my concert-conversations, especially to young people: nothing is built without taking the right amount of time. What is learned quickly is quickly forgotten.

Many of your works explore lesser-known repertoire, which requires courage. What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken artistically?

I’ve taken two. On the one hand, engaging with pieces performed by the greatest pianists of the 20th century. On the other, exploring rarely performed composers and compositions, such as some of Liszt’s pieces featured on my albums. I like challenges. Taking risks means working hard, even accepting criticism. The result exceeded my expectations: one of the recorded pieces has surpassed 200,000 views on YouTube, something I never imagined. The project was selected among the best albums of 2022 at the International Classical Music Awards. A great satisfaction, a cultural barrier broken.

And will there be another leap into the unknown?

Yes, I have two ideas in the works. A complex album, which will require a lot of time, and then the idea of ​​writing a book: putting down on paper what I do during these meetings.
Wherever I’ve presented it, this request has been strong.