Riccardo Barba

Riccardo Barba was born in Desenzano del Garda (Italy) on August 28, 1991. He starts playing piano at age 11 with Serafino Curotti. After classical piano and composition studies, he dedicate himself to improvised music, Jazz and electric keyboards, exploring contemporary sonorities.
 Among his teachers: Paolo Ugoletti, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Tino Tracanna, Attilio Zanchi, Massimo Colombo, Greg Burk, Oscar Del Barba, Pietro Tonolo and Paolo Birro. He studied Choral Conducting with Silvio Baracco. He perfected piano technique with Riccardo Zadra.

He graduated in Jazz Piano at the Conservatory of Milan in 2015 with a dissertation on Chick Corea and the Fender Rhodes. During his academic years he specialized in electronic keyboards and synthesizers. He took part to several masterclasses with artist such as Franco D’Andrea, Efrain Toro, Bob Moses, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, Jorge Rossy and Dave Liebman.

He works as an arranger for big bands, city bands and choirs. His compositions range from classical and contemporary music to jazz and pop. In 2015 he wrote the suite Mongol Uls for vibraphone, piano and double bass, inspired by the travels from Italy to Mongolia of vibraphone player Olmo Chittò. The suite is contained in the album Di Passaggio (Sonitus 217/20) recorded with Chittò and bass player Nicola Ziliani.

He works with “Il Vagabondo” of Trento and the Piccola Orchestra Lumière.

He works as composer and producer for Fluffyaudio, Italian producers of sample libraries for Kontakt.

He is founder of EKE (Electric Keys Experiment) alongside with Olmo Chittò, experimental group of electronic music and contemporary jazz. They recorded their first album in 2017: Electric Keys Experiment (Ritmo&Blu Records).

In 2018 he plays with Giacomo Papetti and Filippo Sala in Angela Kinczly’s album Silent (Ritmo&Blu Records).

In 2019 he recorded the debut album TOO MANY KEYS (MCP records) of his trio BARBA NEGRI ZILIANI with Nicola Ziliani (double bass) and Federico Negri (drums).

He perfomed at the Teatro Grande of Brescia with Olmo Chittò, Giulio Corini, Federico Negri and the Banda Cittadina di Brescia on the occasion of the first performance of Chittò’s piece “Milt, chiedo davvero scusa”.

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