Updated: May 4, 2024
Antonio Flinta, pianist, composer and educator born in Chile, as a child lived in Peru, Italy and Spain, and at 14 started to play piano influenced by the musical environment of his mother’s family in Madrid. At 17 he started studying physics at university, but soon after realized that music was his calling.
He studied in Madrid at the Taller de Músicos with Joshua Edelman, and attended masterclasses with Barry Harris, Bob Moses and Chuck Israels, among others. With a homemade piano solo tape recording of “All Blues” and “My Funny Valentine,” he won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., where he studied composition and arrangement, improvisation with Ed Tomassi and jazz piano with Ray Santisi. In Rome in 1993, after playing in various bands and in duo with clarinetist Tony Scott, he formed his own trio with Roberto Bucci on bass and Claudio Gioannini on drums, starting a musical relationship and a friendship that lasts until today.
Focusing on original compositions and interplay, the trio recorded four CDs: “The Meeting” (2000), “Tree and Figure” (2003), “La Edad De La Ira” (2005), and “Portraits and Songs” (2007), and toured both national and international jazz festivals. The song “Ninietta” included in the album “La Edad De La Ira” was a finalist in the 2006 USA Songwriting Competition.
In 2008 the trio expanded its expressive possibilities becoming a quartet with the contribution of longtime friend tenor saxophonist Piercarlo Salvia. The quartet toured four continents, gained wide recognition and recorded two celebrated CDs: “Tamed” (2009) and “Art is an Insurgent Poem” (2013).
In 2015, with alto saxophonist Paolo Farinelli, the quartet toured internationally and new compositions led to the critically acclaimed CD: “La Noche Arrolladora” (2017).
In 2018 a new quartet takes off with tenor and soprano sax Luciano Orologi, and international tours (Ukraine, Finland, Russia, Germany, Austria) bring about our album “Cycles and Rhymes” (2019). In 2021 Antonio Flinta releases "Secrets of a Kiri Tree", his first solo piano album.
The Antonio Flinta Trio and Quartet has toured jazz festivals, theatres and jazz clubs all over the world, from China to Guatemala, from Finland to Morocco, always performing its own music: original compositions and an intense interplay are the means to explore moods, colours, textures and space, through driving rhythmic grooves or intimate ballads, through mantra-like vamps or free form songs, always bearing in mind that music – universal language – must communicate.
Awards
The song Ninietta from the album La Edad De La Ira was awarded finalist in the 2006 USA Songwriting Competition
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Antonio Flinta: Anger, Commitment and Love
![Read "Anger, Commitment and Love" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/7f5994263cdf04ecc7977ce5547b80ef.jpg)
by Dan McClenaghan
Chilean-born pianist Antonio Flinta, based now in Italy, catches the ear with his solo piano presentations. His alone-at-the-keyboard albums include Secret Of A Kiri Tree (2022) and 2023's marvelous Peripheral Songs's--both self-produced discs that make a great argument for self-production; they can sit on a serious listening shelf with Keith Jarrett, Kenny Werner or Marc Copland. He expands his vision for a quartet outing on a fourth album with his longstanding trio featuring bassist Roberto Bucci and drummer Claudio Gioannini, ...
read moreAntonio Flinta: Peripheral Songs
![Read "Peripheral Songs" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/bf34e72160da70804ec1f424a7441602.jpg)
by Dan McClenaghan
In July 2021 Chilean-born, Italian-based pianist & composer Antonio Flinta went into a recording studio near Florence to record his first solo piano album. Spontaneity and freshness of expression were the goals. In two hours he had twenty pieces--improvisations, covers and originals. The initial result of this effort was Secrets of a Kiri Tree (Self Produced, 2022), one of the year's finest solo efforts (review here). But there was more music that did not make the cut. Whatever ...
read moreAntonio Flinta: Secrets of a Kiri Tree
![Read "Secrets of a Kiri Tree" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/78d38bbd1b5e8a5a689f876850948632.jpg)
by Dan McClenaghan
After the release of several trio and quartet albums, Antonio Flinta, a Chilean-born pianist now based in Italy, tries on the solo piano format for size. He wears it well. Secrets Of A Kiri Tree features Flinta alone at the keyboard, exploring three of his engagingly melodic originals along with four covers, including Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight." Cancion De Amor" comes from the songbook of flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia. It is a song of love, tinted indigo, ...
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