Melissa Evans Tierra to Record the Piano Works of Italian Composer Lorenzo Milani
- San Diego Piano Academy
- Mar 10, 2025
- 2 min read
Melissa Evans Tierra recently signed a contract with Italian composer Lorenzo Milani to record his complete current piano output, roughly two hours of music, over the next two years.
Melissa has long been drawn to new music and considers supporting living composers essential to the future of classical music. Lorenzo's compositions, often described as post-modern or neo-impressionist, have won multiple awards.
About Lorenzo Milani
Born in Italy on September 27, 1969, Lorenzo Milani studied classical piano privately and at the Bergamo and Milan conservatories from 1977 to 1988. He began composing in 1979, studying harmony and composition alongside music history.
During high school, in 1984, he competed in the International Competition for Young Pianists of Stresa, Italy, and continued his studies in composition, instrumentation, counterpoint, and orchestration. In the same period, he deepened his interest in early twentieth-century music, an era that had drawn him in from the start. He also encountered the first personal computers of the 1980s and began applying them to music composition, notation, arrangement, sequencing, and algorithmic composition.
He earned a Master of Science in Computer Science with a specialization in Applied Mathematics from the University of Milan, and from 1990 worked across software engineering fields including technology, electronics, aerospace, avionics, robotics, motorsport and Formula 1, R&D, acoustics, and digital signal processing, developing his own music software for the Atari and Mac platforms along the way. He has worked as a manager and entrepreneur at companies and startups in Italy and Switzerland.
Alongside this, he built a parallel career in electronics and synthesizers. In 1993, he founded the progressive rock band Arkhé, where he served as composer, arranger, producer, artistic director, and keyboardist. Through 1999, the band played more than 150 live concerts, including a national television broadcast, and in 1997 self-produced the album Arkhé, which sold more than 4,000 copies worldwide.
The piano has fascinated Milani since childhood, and from around age 10 his musical aesthetic began drawing from the early twentieth century. Claude Debussy became a particular focus of study, alongside other composers of the years before the First World War, a period he considers a golden age in music's evolution.
He currently lives in northern Italy with his wife, Simona, and their fifteen-year-old son, Emanuele.
Preludi Semplici, Op. 41
One of the pieces Melissa will record is Preludi Semplici, Op. 41, written by Milani in June and July of 2022. The opus contains three movements: Tema variato, Piccola Ballata, and Elegia.
Melissa discovered the pieces online while pregnant with her daughter, Aviana. They became a source of comfort during her recovery from childbirth, and the second movement in particular seemed to soothe Aviana in her early days. The first movement tells an expansive, traveling story, the second unfolds like a gentle lullaby, and the third carries a feeling of acceptance and renewal.
Stay tuned for new releases as Melissa's recording of Lorenzo's works unfolds over the next two years.
