CLASSICAL MUSIC

Olen Cesari was born in Durres, Albania in 1975, and began to study violin at three years of age under the tutelage of his mother, herself a violinist and teacher. Considered a child prodigy, he gave his first performance at the age of five, and at seven offered his first recital. At 13, Olen graduated with honors from the Superior Arts Institute of Tirana, Albania, winning Albania’s highest musical prize, the Golden Medal. Granted a scholarship, Olen moved to Italy and began an intensive classical music tour, performing in some of the most important concert halls in Italy including Palazzo Barberini, Villa Medici, Chiesa degli Artisti and Accademia di Francia, performing the major concerti, including Wieniawski, Sibelius, Glasunow, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Mendelssohn and Bartok. At 14, he surprised audiences with his perfect performances of Paganini’s intensely challenging 24 Capricci, and at 15 won the “Rodolfo Lipizer” award, one of the most prestigious international competition for classical violinists. Olen graduated at 17 from Rome’s renowned Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome, the youngest violinist to graduate in the history of the Italian conservatory, achieving the highest possible mark. In 1992, he won the Mozart Award, and with it admittance to the famous Mozarteum in Salzburg. Under the American Italian Maestro Ruggiero Ricci, whom Olen considers his true mentor of this period, Olen was awarded coveted first prizes, like the international “Foyer des Artistes” for his excellent interpretation of Paganini’s works. Still a teenager, Olen was invited to play in many European theatres, including a memorable concert in Salzburg’s Landestheater where Mr. Ricci lets Olen play his precious and unique Stradivarius violin. Olen graduated again with honors after just one year of study, instead of the usual four years. From Salzburg Olen moved to the United States where he performed as a soloist including in the Masonic Temple Theatre of Detroit and the Silk Road Theatre of Chicago.

JAZZ, POP AND NEW SOUNDS

Returning to Italy in 1993, Olen won the first prize on Italy’s top variety television program, performing his own jazz arrangement of Paganini Capricci; major press define him the “new Paganini.” Called to explore a new musical environment, Olen moved to New York to explore different kinds of music: jazz, pop, soul, rap, country and ethnic. His favourite clubs, in this period, are the Tabac Café and the Time Café where, every night, he performs with musicians, not yet famous, like Maroon 5, Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow. Playing with these artists, he widened his musical horizons, and drew him to work with composer Danny Elfman. Back in Rome, for several years, Olen regularly performed at “Il Locale” with, among others, Daniele Silvestri, Max Gazzè, Alex Britti, Carmen Consoli and Sergio Cammariere and notably with Jacob Dylan and Pearl Jam. Olen’s calling to diverse musical forms flourished alongside his classical career. He founded the Liebhaber Konzert Trio (LKT), composed of guitar (Giuseppe Pistone), flute (Alessandra D’Andrea) and violin, performing Rossini, Mozart, Haydn, Debussy and Piazzolla’s works completely re arranged and re adapted by the young artists. The LKT performed throughout Europe until 1999, participating in the 40th world renowned Spoleto Festival and at the “Estate Catanese” organized by the Italian songwriter Franco Battiato. Olen enlarged his musical scope by performing with an ethnic music group, the Meridia, and in popular Balkan music group, the Ogila.

COLLABORATIONS AND POP PRODUCTIONS

Olen’s skills and versatility, well known in the music world, have allowed him to collaborate with several Italian pop music; in 1997 Italian popular artist Lucio Dalla that, impressed by his huge talent, asks Olen to play with him in the World Tour that enables him to perform in some of the most important theatres of the world, including New York. The climax of this experience is the exhibition for the Holy Father, John Paul II, for the Eucharistic Congress in front of an audience of two million people. The same concert allowed Olen to play alongside rock legend Bob Dylan and jazz pianist Michel Petrucciani. In this period Olen also played with Franco Califano and in 2001 toured with Anna Oxa for a year. After a concert in the Sporting Club, in Monte Carlo, he enjoyed a jam session with Prince. Among Olen’s strongest collaborations is his 15 year partnership with Sergio Cammariere and, for the past several years with the unique songwriter Simone Cristicchi for whom Olen composed in 2007, the strings portion of the Sanremo Festival-winning song “Ti regalerò una rosa”. From Lucio Dalla, Olen learned music production and, in 2000, he began a career of musician-producer with the roman songwriter Veronica Lock, resulting in the album “Come un satellite che va”, with the record company Warner Music Italia. That album reached the top ten of MTV, Italy. In 2003 he founded “Olen Art”, his record company, by which he produces the album of Enrico Giaretta, titled “ Sulle ali della musica”. In this project Olen cooperated with extraordinary musicians like Pharrell Williams, Tony Levin, Fabrizio Bosso and Daniela Di Bonaventura, each one of them a special friend to Olen. He also undertakes a series of concerts with Enrico Giaretta, a refined songwriter and pianist, which led him to perform around the world and in several avant-garde clubs like the Blue Note in Milan and the Piano’s in New York. In 2004 Olen produced his first Enrico Giaretta’s music video “La Fabbrica delle Nuvole” and, in the spring of 2007, thanks to the collaboration of Alenia Aeronautica, he completes the second Giaretta’s video. One of the songs he writes with Enrico Giaretta, “ Tutta la vita in un momento”, translated in English with the title of “Back in town” and sung by the Canadian artist Matt Dusk, ascends the charts and achieve the first positions in Japan, Canada, Holland and gets in the international top 100.

SOUND-TRACKS

Olen has a deep passion for movies and in particular for writing soundtracks. He composes and produces the music for the movie “L’Italiano” by Ennio de Dominicis, together with Sergio Cammariere, and for the Maria Sole Tognazzi’s drama “Non finisce qui”. He plays a part in Giacomo Campiotti’s “Time to love” soundtrack and he composes and produces the music for the short film “Diamonds, Bullets and Fate”, winner of the Gold Grand Jury Award at the Houston Texas Film in 2005. In 2006 Olen participates, as special guest with Eliza Duscku, to the Euro Video Grand Prix and to several television programs, “Domenica In”, “In bocca al lupo” and “Novecento”. Olen Cesari is not only an incredible violin virtuoso but a full-blown master of stylistic versatility. He is an excellent classical musician, with a unique talent that ravishes the mind with performances of Paganini, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Mendelssohn; a unique jazz and pop composer; an unbelievable performer and improviser and, last but not least, a hits producer and arranger. He is that kind of universal musician that so rarely we encounter today. He is able to mix different styles and sounds turning them into travels toward emotions and fantasies that lead us around the world.