BIOGRAPHY
Maria Barbieri is an Italian guitarist with strong progressive rock, ambient, hard rock, soul-jazz and pop influences. She is a Suhr artist and session player in Italy and abroad. Several international collaborations and mentions by some of her idols, see: Franco Mussida, Robert Fripp, Lino Vairetti, Steven Wilson etc.
Robert Fripp mention( Innerviews, Classic Rock, La Stampa, El País ) :
Would you consider including a woman in King Crimson?
"The choice of members is not arbitrary. This King Crimson I saw on the evening of June 22, 2013 had seven musicians. They were individual, specific musicians, and they were all men. If they had all been women, I would have made the phone calls. But they weren't. Are we open to women members of the band? Sure, if they're the right women in the right time, right place and right circumstance. And there is a wonderful woman named Maria Barbieri that plays “Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part Two.” But she didn't spring to mind on June 22, 2013. If she had, I would have made the call. She’s doing a great job.”
Robert Fripp
Recently mentioned again by the Crimson King on social media and on the official page also for her work on Fracture, a song considered impossible to play.
She has appeared on several television programs, including 'Il Sabato Italiano,' 'Domenica In,' and 'Bel Tempo Si Spera,' broadcast on channels like RAI 1 and TV 2000. She also had collaboration in orchestral projects and she appeared in videos around the world with important musicians. She was also the protagonist in Pompeii for a tribute performance to David Gilmour. She also played as a guest on the occasion of the memorable Osanna concert in Forcella in 2019 and Lino Vairetti mentioned in two interviews. Present in Anthony Garone and Octavio Salas' international video “Fracture All Over The World” together with Jennifer Batten guitarist of Michael Jackson and many other important musicians. Recently featured in collaboration with Larry Crowe, Fred Hervieu and Greg Breit for an interpretation of Spectral Mornings (Steve Hackett). In active future foreign collaborations.
Maria is now officially part of the Suhr team, a dream come true considering that it has been her favorite guitar brand for years! She also collaborated with Marco De Virgilis' DV Mark and participated in The Mark World Show 2021 .
ARTISTIC LIFE
Maria Barbieri is an Italian guitarist born in Lacco Ameno of Ischia on April 17, 1994. From the early years Maria showed a lively interest in music, mainly thanks to the influence of the family. In particular, the father, in addition to hobby of the bass (he was not a professional musician but he worked as chef and was an administrator in the family society Il Girasole), a collector of instruments, equipment and engaged in do-it-yourself jobs; he was a big fan of music, especially English bands and the Progressive Rock movement. Maria's mother, known as Liliana, whose full name is Eraldo Carmela, is a housewife, in her free time a keyboard player, singer and artist. She played in an psychedelic band in Ischia with her husband on bass and her brother Franco on drums. Maria followed the rehearsals, and in the meantime, at the age of five, she dreamed with the background of Gentle Giant, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Beatles, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, America and all that resonated in the house thanks to a romantic vintage record player. All the member of the family played an instrument, even if for a short period of time and not by profession: her brother Domenico Barbieri played the drums, and her older sister Licia Barbieri was a singer in her adolescence.
Although she is the youngest of three siblings, she is fascinated by music from a period she didn't directly experience; she knew that music through the vinyls present in the place where she grew up, and for that she appeared, from the early years, a bit bizarre to her friends due to these unusual musical tastes. At the age of nine, Maria asked to her father is she could study a musical instrument. He offered her a choice between bass or keyboards, to follow in the footsteps of one of the parents, but in the end she choose the guitar. So she had first private lessons, but despite those lessons, Maria's style is shaped through various listening and personal interests studying the songs she liked by ear, immediately developing this ability in listening and not by following a classical theoretical-academic studies. Her rapid progress soon became evident, prompting her father to guide her musical journey with dedication. After a year of lessons on acoustic guitar, Maria had her first electric guitar, a Van Halen Peavey Wolfgang Special. With that guitar she exhibited in public for the first time at the age of eleven in a square with his brother, receiving a lot of applause from tourist public. While studying, she also accompanied her father to his concerts, filming his performances with the bands Platinum and Others using a video camera.
In her teenage years, Maria began performing in local circuits on the island, often with her father and brother. During this period, she developed a passion for metal music, particularly inspired by Pantera's Dimebag Darrell. Growing up she focused on Hard Rock, Progressive Rock, Pop and soul-jazz. At seventeen she resumed private lessons about harmony and classical guitar with Stefano Zabatta, always studying in a self-taught way, songs to be published on the YouTube channel. She became more and more passionate about King Crimson, after discovering them at the age of fourteen. The first time she heard the Crimson King was a thrilling shock—an experience she would never want to be without! Here Maria played many songs of the genre in the trio with Marisa Cuomo, her friend and incredible keyboardist, and Enzo Buono, engineer and drummer by hobby.
At about twenty she attended several guitar clinics, one of them was Guthrie Govan guitar clinic Rome in 2014.
Robert Fripp has become an artistic and inspirational point of reference, as well as a favorite guitarist. Maria began working as a guitarist, from Italy. In 2016 she obtained a proposal for an audition that she cannot refuse, thus joining after a positive casting the Little Tony Family, taking the place of the great guitarist and composer Enrico Ciacci, Little Tony's brother in the musical project of the family. She worked with them for three years, often treading television studios on Rai 1 and Tv 2000, participating in programs such as “Domenica In”, “Il Sabato italiano” or “Bel Tempo si Spera”, touring Italy and Slovenia.
At a certain point Maria decides to put herself completely in her guitarist career. In this period she lost her father.. who has always encouraged her in the musical profession. In that sad period, Maria created several songs that she arranged with an experimental trio. She undertook various collaborations and generated interest in a record that has not yet been published due to COVID-19. In April 2019 an incredible thing happened: Robert Fripp mentioned Maria at an international conference about King Crimson and the 50th anniversary, answering the journalist and saying her name, asking to journalist and writer Alessandro Staiti. Here are the exact words taken from the interview:
Would you consider including a woman in King Crimson?
"The choice of members is not arbitrary. This King Crimson I saw on the evening of June 22, 2013 had seven musicians. They were individual, specific musicians, and they were all men. If they had all been women, I would have made the phone calls. But they weren't. Are we open to women members of the band? Sure, if they're the right women in the right time, right place and right circumstance. And there is a wonderful woman named Maria Barbieri that plays “Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part Two.” But she didn't spring to mind on June 22, 2013. If she had, I would have made the call. She’s doing a great job.”
Robert Fripp
Since that moment there have been very positive changes and Maria is increasingly committed to her projects, with a more mature awareness. She collaborates in big bands and in various remote projects given the covid-19 period. In 2020 she also played with Lino Vairetti and Osanna, and is surrounded by important references, which are a kind of musical family. She met the great guitarist and singer Jakko Jakszyk at the after show of King Crimson concert in Verona, which became another important pillar in her career.
The first collaboration / endorser occurred in 2020 with the Dv Mark brand with an amplifier, an Italian brand of the great Marco De Virgilis. In April 2021, one of Maria's dreams becomes true, that of becoming an artist of the Suhr brand, joining the prestigious team of the historian John Suhr. A great prestige and happiness, considering that Maria has been playing guitars of this brand since her first Suhr modern by her father in 2014.
Recently Maria was also mentioned by the great Steven Wilson , one of her favorite artists, who complimented her in an interview regarding a video in which she played the solo of Eminent Sleaze, a song from her latest album The Future Bites.
It’s funny, there’s an Italian guitarist who’s learned that solo. She’s called Maria Barbieri, an amazing guitar player. She’s transcribed that guitar solo and she can play it exactly: I could never play it again! (laughs) Never! It’s amazing to see someone else transcribe it. She could probably tell you what I’m doing better than I could.
Steven WilsonMAIN INFLUENCES:
David Gilmour, Dimebag Darrell, Pantera, Robert Fripp, Jakko Jakszyk, Steve Hackett, Steve Vai, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, ELP, Steven Wilson, Peter Gabriel, Franco Mussida, Toto, Peter Gabriel, Jethro Tull, Van Halen, Aristocrats, Guthrie Govan, Riverside, PFM,Carlo Fimiani, Osanna, Area, Genesis, Scott Henderson, Beatles, Deep Purple, Steve Morse, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa etc.
All future updates will be present on this site and on the social pages.
Thanks for your attention, this is a biography of the most significant moments in Mary's journey.
