RUSSIAN SAMOVAR PRESENTS IVAN DALIA

Russian Samovar presents Italian pianist, composer and showman Ivan Dalia for a dinner-and-show evening built around his “Music, Stories & Smiles.” The billing does not specify whether this is one of his solo piano appearances or a performance with his South African Jazz Quartet, so the night is best understood as a Dalia-led set rather than a confirmed quartet date. Expect a program shaped by his wide-ranging approach to piano performance and storytelling.

Born blind in Teverola, near Naples, Dalia studied at Naples’s San Pietro a Majella Conservatory before moving to New York, where he is now based. His work moves among jazz, pop and South African music; his piano-lounge repertoire also draws on Italian songs and film soundtracks, filtered through a jazz twist and North and South American rhythms. He has performed with Toots Thielemans, Roberta Gambarini and Fabrizio Bosso, while his 2017 debut album featured Bosso and Rosario Giuliani. The Berkshire Edge describes shows that combine “jazz, traditional, and classical music with original stories,” calling him both artist and entertainer; an event preview praised his “deconstructed jazz compositions and bittersweet irony.”