Recognized and grateful to his peers, Richard Galliano retraces his career through his best-of “Les années Milan”.
A music lover, he sees his work as a garden cultivated day by day, season after season.
An album where each sound is a flower whose seed he planted a few years earlier.
It is with passion that Richard Galliano paints the portrait of a career led without a false note across the four corners of the world. An artistic evolution that continues from February for over 4 months and a tour of 50 dates throughout Europe and beyond since he will also perform in Japan. “It’s physically exhausting. I take about a hundred flights a year on average. On stage, there’s also the weight of the accordion that has accompanied me for 50 years.”
A 13-kilo gift given by his father, marking the start of a unique career.
AUDIO – Galliano talks about his tour and the accordion
Richard Galliano is bound to schizophrenia. The man is, so to speak, Italian, due to the origins of his ancestors between Perugia and Civitavecchia, his instrument made in Castelfidardo, his passion for humor, lifestyle, “a part of me has remained Italian.”
The artist, however, finds his roots in France between his studies at the conservatory of Nice where “his ties remain strong.” Then there is Paris, the city of art, and his encounter with a jazz monument. “In my youth, I suffered from the poor image, the lack of interest in the accordion in favor of other instruments. Things happened naturally when I went to Paris. I immediately worked with Claude Nougaro, and for me, it was evident that something could be achieved. I wanted to take the accordion out of its ghetto.”
A mission accomplished after more than 30 years of career, a fifty-year-old accordion, and dozens of encounters with renowned artists like Astor Piazzolla or Charlie Haden. “This album is like an assessment, as if I had sown the seeds and am now reaping them. All the work I did at Milan yields something quite rich with Tango, Solo, Tangaria… I wanted to change the destiny and image of the accordion, I think I succeeded. It seems to me that people appreciate the accordion better thanks to my work. It was great to release this best-of; after planting the seeds, I see the flowers. I am in the position of a music lover. So many years have passed. There were things I had forgotten. It’s a thought for Astor Piazzolla, Charlie Haden.”
AUDIO – Galliano talks about his album “Les années Milan”
Between melancholy and nostalgia, the artist regrets his youth. The album refreshes everyone’s memory, giving those who listen the chance to relive moments, an energy that now belongs to the past. In an environment where the creative spirit is highly valued, the accordionist who “loves all his pieces” chooses to be rational when he must pick his favorite one. “If I refer to Radio Classique’s choices, they have often played my version of Piazzolla’s Oblivion. A piece that’s going to be the soundtrack for the closing credits of a film. When I hear Oblivion, I hear Neapolitan music.”
