Ludovico Einaudi announces his forthcoming album, The Summer Portraits

Last year, Einaudi took a villa on a Mediterranean island and found the house to be decorated with 30 or 40 beautiful oil paintings clearly made by the same hand. Upon investigation, he discovered the story of a woman who owned the house and spent every summer there with her family. She used to create new paintings every summer and leave them in the house.

“I started to think of my summers, the time where my life was strictly connected with all my senses, where the days felt like months and months like years, and I was free from morning to night, and every day was a new discovery of life, and nature was a fundamental part of it. We were nature,” he explains.”I thought that everyone has their own version of the summer portraits. A beautiful season connected with the best moments of our lives. So I started to make my own paintings with music. This album is dedicated to all our endless summers memories, all our beautiful moments.”

"Rose Bay" takes its name from the suburb of Sydney where Einaudi's grandfather, Wando Aldrovandi, emigrated in Australia in the 1930s. A top conductor who performed in front of Puccini, he refused to play for Italy's fascist government and left in protest – but his departure, when Einaudi's mother was just 12, left a hole at the centre of the family. Aldrovandi wrote letters to his children, sent coats and shoes in the winter, but didn’t see them again. "I grew up with the image of this person that I never saw," Einaudi says. "My mother missed her father all her life. Music became a place where she could connect to him".

Later this year, Einaudi will play two nights at the London Palladium (11-12 November). This is followed by five consecutive nights at the Royal Albert Hall in summer 2025, the longest continuous headline run ever by a pianist at the historic London venue. The record-breaking run of dates takes place from 30 June to 4 July.