Melissa Evans Tierra is currently undertaking a multi-year project to record the complete piano works of Italian composer Lorenzo Milani, a survey spanning roughly two hours of music written from the 1980s to the present day, the latest expression of her ongoing commitment, as a performer, to championing living composers.

 

Milani's music is often described as post-modern or neo-impressionist, shaped by a lifelong fascination with Debussy and the pre-World War I era he considers a golden age in music's evolution. His path to composition has been anything but conventional: after training in piano and composition at conservatories in Bergamo and Milan, he built a parallel career in software engineering, aerospace, avionics, robotics, and Formula 1, and in the 1990s founded the progressive rock band Arkhé, performing over 150 live concerts and self-producing an album that sold roughly 4,000 copies worldwide. Today he is recognized as an award-winning contemporary composer.