Filippo Gorini had passed two checkpoints and heard the heavy “whump” of metal doors closing behind him a half dozen times before he walked into the chapel of Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. He said later his thoughts during that walk had been about the piano that he would find there. Bringing a grand piano into the medium-security wing was out of the question. He knew there would be an electronic piano, but did it have a full 88-note keyboard? Would it have pedals? Would he be able to play the program he had planned, or would he need to make changes on the fly?
As it turned out, the piano had a full keyboard and pedals. Gorini immediately sat down and began playing, getting a feel for the action and the sound. He had 15 minutes to attune himself to the instrument before 40 inmates, which Oregon Corrections calls “adults in custody,” came in for the recital.
Gorini, a native of Milan, Italy, began serious study of the piano when he was 15, and his career was launched five years later after he won first prize at the Telekom Beethoven Competition. He has played with symphony orchestras in the great concert halls of Europe, made award-winning recordings, and now was to play before an audience of prisoners.
Gorini has long wanted to connect with people in prison. Although he has tried elsewhere, it is only in Oregon that he finally got the chance, as Bill Crane and the staff of Portland Piano International worked with corrections officials to make it happen. Gorini played at Eastern Oregon Correctional Facility on March 13 and at Coffee Creek on March 24 and, as part of a monthlong series of Oregon concerts and teaching sessions, at Cannon Beach, Eugene, St. Philip the Deacon Episcopal Church in Portland and his concluding performance March 29 at Pioneer Courthouse Square. In 2019, he was invited to play in Portland Piano International’s “Rising Star” series, making it the first city he played in the United States. This year, he included Portland in his “Sonata for 7 Cities” project, in which he spends a month in a city. Other places in the project are Milan, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Vienna, and Medellin, Colombia. Thanks to Big Al’s Specialty Movers, a concert grand was delivered to the prison in Pendleton and the minimum security unit in Wilsonville. Chapels and cafeterias stood in for a concert hall and, at Coffee Creek, the women softened the room by hanging quilts they had made and polished the piano until it sparkled.
Regardless of whom he is playing for, Gorini plays pieces that are as challenging as those he plays in a concert hall. That includes Beethoven’s 31st piano sonata. Written when the composer’s health began to fail, the sonata, in the words of critic Jonathan Bliss, “goes from the absolute depths of despair to utter euphoria.” Gorini’s playing complex pieces at every performance is a sign of respect for his listeners: “This music speaks to the most vulnerable parts of our souls, and it is meant for everyone,” he says.“I live by the conviction that music should be played to every heart that needs to listen.”
Gorini’s desire to play for imprisoned people comes from his belief that all human beings are entitled and benefit from exposure to art and beauty. Before playing at Coffee Creek, Gorini told the audience about the pain and suffering Beethoven experienced in his life. During fast, technical passages, the women exchanged sidelong glances to convey the “wow” of the moment, but the deepest emotions surfaced toward the end of the sonata. The melody breaks down and stops while a deep chord is repeated 10 times, each louder and fiercer than before. Many of the women sat with their heads bowed. Then, after a breath of silence, a beautiful fugue began, and one by one their spirits and heads began to rise until its triumphant conclusion. According to Gorini, one inmate told him: “I never get to listen this way, and won’t do it again until you come back.”
While in Pendleton, Gorini gave a lesson to an inmate to help him with three Chopin pieces he had been working on. The inmate wrote him a letter immediately afterward; the following is a quote from the letter, shared with permission from Gorini.
“Thank you for your inspiration,” the inmate wrote. “Hearing you play and speak about music the way you did rekindled my desire to play again. I got up and unpacked my Yamaha keyboard, a student model with plastic keys and a penchant for not sounding here and there. But as I tried to put the knowledge you gave me into practice that keyboard may as well have been a Steinway concert grand. I have to tell you that I have been in prison the last 11 years of my life. During my time I have been witness to a whole host of things no one should ever see. But, in the past decade, I cannot remember a time where I was more intimidated than sitting down under your watchful gaze and trying to play a piece of music that I love. It was wonderful to feel that way again. To feel like music mattered and that someone like you, a master samurai of the piano, would want to help me on the path to becoming a better musician. I will take those lessons with me and hold onto them for as long as my hands work.”
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