Mr Baldocci, a music-theatre spectacle by award-winning composer Simone Spagnolo, is a daring show for acting-pianist, answerphone machine, stereo, and stage props. Premiered as part of the 2025 LCM Composition Festival, this work blurs the boundaries between music, theatre and philosophy.

At its core, Mr Baldocci follows a man searching for his identity through fractured memories, interrupted fragments, and manipulated musical citations sourced both popular and cultivated music, from Beethoven to Freddie Mercury, from Stravinsky to jazz. In this post-truth world, identity proves to be anything but fixed — fluid, multiple, dissolving before our eyes.

Performed and inspired by internationally acclaimed pianist Gabriele Baldocci, the spectacle intertwines virtuosic performance with theatricality.

Part concert, part theatre, part existential game, Mr Baldocci reimagines the composer as both trickster and truth-teller — stealing, reshaping, and forging new musical realities. Similarly, as a sort of detective investigating himself, the performer engages in a fluid interweaving of piano playing, physical actions and improvisation, forming a fractured picture of himself that emerges from both mysterious answerphone messages and musical memories.

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Written between 2022 and 2024, Mr Baldocci was first premiered in Lawrence Hall, London College of Music, as part of the 2025 LCM Composition Festival (University of West London).

Further Performances will take place on 21 and 22 November 2025 at The Wanstead Curtain, as part of the Wanstead Fringe Festival, and on 28 and 29 March 2026 at Livorno's Teatro Vertigo, Italy. ​​​