Alessandro Petri

Portrait of Alessandro Petri
Instrument: Keyboards
Birthday: October 11th
From Viareggio, Tuscany
Living in Austria
When did you start playing? Quite late, 1st/2nd year of Liceo, I was 14, I bought my first keyboard and started taking piano lessons.
Why did you start playing? Listening for the first time to great keyboard solos in songs like Black Diamond was such a blast for my poor untrained ears. At that time Daniele was already playing guitar, so I started studying and training on the keyboard with the aim of playing together in a power metal band.
What's in your music folder? Well mainly: Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Avantasia, Angra, André Matos, Helloween, Gammaray, Metallica, Children Of Bodom, Elvenking, Dream Theater, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Edguy, Stratovarius, Blind Guardian, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Beethoven, Giorgio Gaber, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bon Jovi, Muse, Eluveitie plus the other artists I surely forgot...
Favourite keyboardists: Jens Johansson, Janne Wirman, Mikko Härkin, Jordan Rudess
Favourite albums:
  • Imaginaerum – Nightwish
  • Keeper of the seven keys pt. 1 & 2 – Helloween
  • Silence & Ecliptica – Sonata Arctica
  • Visions – Stratovarius
  • The Metal Opera pt. II & The Scarecrow – Avantasia
  • Angels Cry – Angra
  • Awake – Dream Theater
  • The Phantom of the Opera – A. L. Webber
  • Les Misérables – C. M. Schönberg
  • Follow the Reaper – Children of Bodom
  • Beethoven's Last Night – Trans-Siberian Orchestra
First concert attended: First one was October 28th 2004 - Milan, Nightwish & Sonata Arctica "Once upon a Tour"
First album bought: I don't really remember, I guess it was an 883 album, but the first metal album was "Legendary Tales" from Rhapsody.
Best live show you've seen / would like to see: Masters of Rock 2019 in CZ \m/ \m/ (Avantasia, Dream Theater, Eluveitie, Gammaray, Delain, Battle Beast...), Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Children of Bodom Tampere, 2015.
Favourite Havenlights song: Havenlights
Favourite books / comics / movie / whatever: Books: any novel by E. A. Poe, "The Lord of the Rings" - J. R. R. Tolkien, "Leaves of Grass" - W. Whitman
Games: Starcraft, Warcraft, Stronghold, Unreal Tournament
Movies / TV series: Lord of the Rings, The Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera
Favourite food / drink: Pizza, any one of Grandma's recipes. Coke, dark beers, red wine.
Day job: Hardware design engineer
Hobbies: Hiking, snowboarding, learning to sing, "Bramaggio" (browsing for new musical / hiking equipment)
A last wise sentence/motto: It's hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead.