Over the last nine years since leaving college I have been fortunate to embark on several very exciting musical projects that have enriched me artistically and as a human being.

As a composer I have always made a point of exploring and pushing the boundaries of my own writing, trying to create different moods within my pieces by combining traditional and more contemporary harmony and focusing on a strong use of melody and groove with the additional use of odd time signatures.
Composers and musicians from Maurice Ravel and Cannonball Adderley to Ennio Morricone, Joshua Redman and Stevie Wonder are a continuous inspiration for what I'm trying to achieve musically.
To me a composition is powerful and magic when it sets immediately a mood, takes the audience on a journey creating vivid images in their minds: that's when I personally get moved the most and the music stays with me for a long time and this is the goal I strive to achieve each time I start a project and complete a recording.

But musicians aren't the only source of inspiration for my writing: photography, movies, certain books, fine art, and known personalties such as Robert Capa, Robert De Niro, Massimo Troisi, Salvator Dali give me an increasing and uninterrupted desire to do well and improve myself all the time.

'Blood & Champagne' is my fourth and latest release as a band leader and I'm really fortunate and happy to have managed to feature well established and talented UK jazz artists. The line up comprises: Frank Harrison on piano, Laurence Cottle on electric bass, Chris Nickolls on drums.

Most recently, within the last year, it has been a real pleasure to start a collaboration with my newly formed Italian quartet: the chemistry between all of us and the memorable concerts done so far have persuaded us to record our first CD together 'Tommaso Starace Quartet - Don't Forget'.
I look forward to more collaborations together and I do hope 'You' ( the listener) enjoy our music!

Combining sound and images is something that has always particularly intrigued me hence the desire and interest in the year 2005 of creating the Elliott Erwitt project where jazz compositions are a direct inspiration of the iconic images of this Magnum photographer. This is an idea that I would love to repeat several times in the future with other great photographers.
What I really found beneficial by embarking on this project was the discovery of how an image can easily provoke a musical idea in ones' mind that otherwise wouldn't necessarily materialize.
This concept was already used by the great composer Mussorgsky who wrote 'Pictures at an Exhibition', watercolour paintings by V. Hartman inspiring the moods of different movements written by the russian composer. This idea has also been used in the opposite way: sounds inspiring the brush strokes of artists such as Kandinskij with Schonberg or music played on the set of a movie to help the actors get into their characters as was the case of Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time In America' where Ennio Morricone's music was played while the actors recited their parts.

Further inspiration has been meeting people who are incredibly giving and experienced musically such as pianist Joan Taylor.
My desire to stretch my musical knowledge within the classical field and her openness and interest in exploring jazz idiom gave life to 'Jazz Meets Classical' in 2002. But this project wouldn't have gone ahead if it wasn't for the continuos encouragement and positive input on Joan's behalf. Always an amazing experience to perform with her, I consider myself very lucky! '

Toward the end of 2010 a new CD will be produced with a group of musicians I have had the pleasure of collaborating with during the past 5 years: Roger Beaujolais on vibraphone Sam Gambarini on Hammond Organ and Alessandro Pivi make the quartet.
We have decided to put together a selection of tunes that enphasise groove and energy; we will contribute with a few originals and include compositions by Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Pat Metheny, Cannonball Adderley.