We were lucky to catch up with Gian Paolo Avanzo recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Gian Paolo, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Hello, I am Gian and welcome you.
Throughout my life I have been passionate about music and I always dreamed of publishing my songs but I never had time to think seriously about that.
This dream was in a draw and I opened it from time to time to store some musical ideas and wishes.
Years passed by and a sense of urgency was brewing inside of me telling me I was living my life without trying to realize this dream.
I thought that you actually never really know how things will turn out until you give them a try.
In the end I had nothing to lose, right?
Friends and family encouraged me as they liked my songs a lot but, you know, they are friends and family!
Finally, I decided to publish my first album and here is the outcome of a life journey which now is just beginning again.
I guess any listener would like to know how the composer is expressing his feelings when writing music.
What do I feel when I think of music? What drives my mind to compose this kind of music?
Well, this is both easy and difficult to explain. I’ll try.
The spark comes from within as usual. I like the change and most of my tracks are made up of parts that seem different from the previous and from the next. This feels like a contemplation of evolution or even revolution. Are we not in a continuous state of evolution? Social, cultural, technological, physical, mental and so on…
Among these musical changes, there is still a recurring melody that tries to give a subtle sense of uniformity to each track.
Besides, most of my music is played as if am trying to find the right notes and with longer than expected silences between certain parts. This represents my inner search for how to express the feeling of the moment as joy, sadness, uncertainty, curiosity… in other words “living through music”.
The idea is to generate in the listener an expectation and excitement about what will be the musical part that will follow.
With “Journey Across The Universe” I gave musicality to what is one of the greatest mysteries of our life: what is the Universe? How was it born? What are we, where do we come from and where are we going? Is it all real or just in our mind? Are we the expression of a superhuman intelligence, what we call God or, perhaps, everything was created by itself?
Although I wanted to express in notes what I feel, thinking about “Journey Across The Universe”, listening to my music, each of us can have their own sensations and feel what their imagination suggests… That depends upon each one of us.
I hope you can share this excitement with me and I would be very pleased to know your moods and feedback as you listen to my music.
Thank you for your time and let the journey begin!
Gian
Gian Paolo, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
In nowadays chaotic life, sometimes you should ask yourself what really matter to you. I mean, besides enjoying family, friends, work and life pleasures, is there something else you are really missing?
In my case, I have always felt the urgency to unleash my creativity in the music and poems forms of art.
After an entire life and thanks to the technology, I had the possibility to realize these dreams online and reach the vastness of the internet audience. It is at the same time frightening and exciting to know what others think about what you have done!
What is more fascinating than a journey into the unknown of the universe? And if this were really possible, what would be the moods of a human being who enters this wonder?
I tried to imagine myself in this situation giving expression to my musical fantasy and the result was “Journey Across The Universe”, a piano album that wants to be not only music but also imagination, narration, feeling and desire to share these sensations with other human beings. To each of you who wants to listen to it, it can arouse completely different sensations, but this is the charm of music…
What sets me apart from others? We are all human beings made the same way and, at the same time, we are unique individuals with our own way to be “us”. So, I fell different because I am what I am and you can feel it opening your hart and mind to my art.
Besides music I have always written poems according to three moods: Twilight, Romantic and Existential.
My first volume of poetries will be available shortly on my website.
A third composite form of art is the mix of video, spoken poems and my music on the background which is a compendium of all my art effort.
Referring to music, I studied for a while when I was a teenager but then continued as a self-thought and this makes me proud of having been able to produce my music.
Poems are most an inner expression of my feelings. My poetries are the result of what appears as a concept of a precise state of mind. They can result cryptic, but this is what I think fascinates the reader. Each one of us can interpret the verses in a different way.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
For most of us, creativity comes from practice.
If we haven’t tried something yet, we won’t know if we are great at it or not.
Since it is simpler and involves no work at all to make that claim, we begin to believe that we are not creative.
I need to at least try to prove to myself or others that I am creative if I want to believe that I am.
Therefore, my recommendation is to strive to identify our areas of creativity rather than believing we lack them.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Think of the unthinkable!
I mean, the creativity makes me think of places, situations, lives, people that do not exist. I feel in an oneiric state of mind which gives sense to the existence.
In my case, the creativity is expressed through music, words, images or a combination of these forms of art.
The rewarding aspect about the outcome of this creativity is the self-satisfaction for what I have done. I did this for my delight!
Another rewarding aspect is to explore the unexplored, disclose what I think is the substrate of the existence and show it in my way.
That is why I have waited for almost my entire life before publishing: I did not feel the urgency of telling the world about my art and, most important, being approved!
Family and friends pushed me outside my comfort zone an so… I published!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gianpaoloavanzo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gianappeal/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GianPaoloAvanzo
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GianPaoloMusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFGIwuy_YILMqVAAw0zROew
- Other: [email protected] https://artists.spotify.com/c/artist/38RFFbevabjNzZ2lL1LXrQ/profile/overview https://open.spotify.com/album/44387LQ5L8qpIjn2ybh3Fq https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHHTTST4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=GIAN+PAOLO+AVANZO&marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&sr=8-1&trackAsin=B0BHHTTST4