Riccardo Zappa has been played on NTS in shows including Blank Forms, featured first on 11 May 2024. Songs played include Celestion.

Born in Forlì (Italy) in 1951, RICCARDO ZAPPA is widely recognized as the greatest Italian acoustic guitarist. For five consecutive years he was voted the best in the poll promoted by the famous monthly magazine "Guitar Club". After that, he was declared to be no longer eligible for nomination.

He studied with classical guitarist Miguel Abloniz (died in 2002), and was very interested in research, for instance on electronic instruments and all new technologies applied to sound. He has created, with delicacy and precision, an elegant fusion between classical and modern music like no one else has done before in Italy. His music is in fact quite unique in the whole Italian prog scene; nor can many other comparisons be found outside Italy, except perhaps Mike Oldfield, for his long, acoustic-based instrumental compositions.

His unmistakable trademark is the "Ovation" guitar, an instrument with a striking nasal sound, very suited to being handled with special effects. After the first three albums, he added to his usual instrumentation a twelve-string "Bozo" guitar, with which he extended his musical spectrum towards more refined, polished results.

His first work, "Auhlela & Zappa" was recorded in 1974 as a duo, with lyrics and vocals by Klaus Auhlela and music by Riccardo Zappa himself. After three years of silence, he began his solo career with the album "Celestion" (1977), where the combination between classical (acoustic) and modern (electronic) influences is clearly evident. To this day, it is still considered his best work. In 1978 he released "Chatka", in a very similar vein, with its remarkable, famous opener "Emphasis" which was inspired by the work of 16th-century' lutanist, Juan Maria Da Crema. "Chatka" soon became very popular in Italy, and is still one of the most successful instrumental albums ever released, featuring one of the first examples of "tapping" on an acoustic guitar. Both these solo albums were recorded in Zappa' own home-recording studio, named "La Camera Incantata" (The Enchanted Chamber).

On his 1980 album "Trasparenze", and for the following two albums, he was joined by Pietro Pellegrini (ALPHATAURUS) on synths and keyboards. The cover shows a picture of the twelve-string guitar he started to use from this album onwards. In the '90s he started to write compositions for bass, mandolin and harp, helped by the widespread popularity of the New Age movement.

Riccardo Zappa is a very highly regarded musician, who has collaborated with many other Italian artists, such as Eros Ramazzotti on a 115-date European tour. He has also collaborated with Mina, Giorgio Gaber, Antonello Venditti, Fiorella Mannoia, Eugenio Finardi, and many more. His albums and CDs are very difficult to find, though fortunately Zappa has now his own web site, from which you can order albums and music scores.

Discography: Aulehla & Zappa (1974) - studio album Celestion (1977) - studio album Chatka (1978) - studio album Trasparenze (1980) - studio album Haermea (1982) - studio album Riccardo Zappa (1983) - studio album Raccolta (1984) - boxset/compilation Minuti (1985) - studio album Prenditi tempo (1986) - studio album Anthakarana Swami (1990) - studio album Santo & Zappa (1991) - studio album Fondali (1993) - studio album Dal vivo (1994) - live album Definire significa limitare (1996) - studio album Riccardo Zappa interpreta Bach (1997) - studio album Ikebana (2000) - studio album Patchouli and Vetyver (2000) - studio album Thesaurus Armonicus (2002) - studio album Il coautore… ed altre rarità (2004) - studio album

Link to progarchives:

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2529