I don’t play for myself, nor to show off my talent; that’s not the purpose of a musician. Rather, the goal is to reveal, to allow the audience to listen and see, because I see music when I play it.” Ingrid Carbone is an accomplished pianist, but also a researcher and tenured professor at the University of Calabria in Cosenza, where she teaches Mathematical Analysis. She has a classical education, a passion for Baroque music, her first great love, and is an interpreter of all the music we group together under the “classical” genre.

Ingrid Carbone was interviewed by Italian TV on the TGcom 24 channels. You can read the full interview (in Italian) here>>

Here’s a translated excerpt.

Music and mathematics have many things in common. The latter can also be creative; it’s an art, in short. Ingrid has successfully combined these two great passions, creating a new format that’s enjoying widespread success on stages around the world. She calls them Concert-Conversations to distinguish them from Concert-Lessons, activities aimed primarily at music students. She’s been doing this since 2019, when she was invited to China for a concert-lesson and asked to accompany the pieces with PowerPoint explanations. “I didn’t expect such a level of attention,” she tells me. “There I realized how important it is for listeners to understand what they’re about to hear, and that in that kind of performance, I could give my best, combining music and my ability to communicate.

The score is not a static display of notes but a reading to be interpreted according to the sensibilities of the reader and “play” it. Revealing what the author wanted to express at a given moment is a skill acquired through years of reading, and not just the stave. Placing the piece within the performer’s cultural context, making it resonate with the echoes of the history of that period, of the places where it came to life, should be part of a musician’s cultural and artistic baggage. Well, Ingrid decided to reveal that precious baggage, transmitting it to listeners, the knowledge that circulates in theater audiences. To leave the theater not only struck by the music but also by its genesis, by the context. In short, to create an informed and educated audience.