Pianist & Composer

Olivia Belli

Italian pianist and composer Olivia Belli is based in the rural Marche region of central Italy. Reflecting on the nature and the world surrounding her, and on how people find their own place in it, Olivia’s poetic and often optimistic piano music has reached audiences around the world.

Olivia describes her musical education as a “normal classical background.” She studied piano to conservatoire level, working her way through the classical repertoire and developing a particular passion for the works of the 20th and 21st century – from Ligeti and Stockhausen to the American experimentalists Cage, Crumb, Reich, and Glass. “I began incorporating some of these ideas in my own music,” says Olivia, who has always composed but until recently it was a “private thing.”

“I feel like, as an artist, most of what I do is to observe – the nature around us, how it changes and how the people interact with it. I spend as much time outside as I can. I try to capture the metamorphosis of nature in my music, and how the experience of living in this environment makes me feel,” explains Olivia. “I practice transcendental meditation and I feel the same peace through that as I get from rural life.”