Name: Giovanni Di Domenico
Born: July 20, 1977, Rome, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Current base: Brussels, Belgium
Giovanni Di Domenico was born in Rome on July 20, 1977. During his early childhood, due to his father’s work as a civil engineer, Giovanni spent his first decade living across several African countries — including Libya, Cameroon, and Algeria — before returning to Europe. This multicultural upbringing enriched his musical sensibility, exposing him to diverse sonic and cultural environments from an early age.
Though largely self-taught until his mid-twenties, Giovanni later pursued formal studies in jazz piano at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in the Netherlands (Koninklijke Conservatorium), around the early 2000s. Now based in Brussels, he has established himself as a prolific pianist, composer, and performer.
Giovanni Di Domenico is known for a genre-defying, boundary-blurring musical vision. His technique draws on rhythm, harmony, and tone — often informed by non-Western traditions — while remaining deeply sensitive to avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical influences, and experimental soundscapes.
He has described his approach as an “encyclopaedic technique,” combining improvisation, free jazz sensibilities, and a broad sonic palette that includes piano, Fender Rhodes, organ, and other keyboards when the context demands.
Through his own label, Silent Water, Giovanni explores and curates a wide array of projects — from intimate solo piano pieces to expansive, cross-cultural ensemble recordings — often emphasizing spontaneity, emotional depth, and experimental freedom.
Throughout his career, Giovanni has collaborated with many acclaimed musicians across the global experimental and jazz scenes. His collaborators include Jim O'Rourke, Akira Sakata, Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano, Arve Henriksen, Alexandra Grimal, Tetuzi Akiyama, João Lobo, and Toshimaru Nakamura.
He has participated in a wide variety of projects — from intimate duos and trios to larger ensembles and cross-genre collaborations — often blurring the lines between jazz, free improvisation, ambient, minimalism, and experimental music.
Giovanni Di Domenico’s music is characterized by its willingness to transcend boundaries — cultural, stylistic, and geographical. His early life across Africa and Italy, combined with his later European education and global collaborations, gives him a unique vantage point in contemporary jazz and experimental music. This cosmopolitan background manifests in a sound that’s as diverse as it is coherent, often evoking deep introspection, subtle nuance, and cross-cultural dialogue.
By founding his own label, Silent Water, and consistently collaborating with a wide network of international artists, he has contributed to expanding the possibilities of improv, jazz, and experimental music — not just as a performer, but as a curator and creative instigator.
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