By Darrell Kirk
Staff reporter
When Diego Salvetti picks up his eight-string guitar, three musical worlds — classical, Italian melody, Brazilian rhythm, Spanish flamenco — converge into a single unmistakable voice. San Juan Islands audiences will experience that fusion when Salvetti performs at the San Juan Community Theatre on Friday, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m., and at the Orcas Center on Sunday, March 1, at 7 p.m.
Salvetti grew up in Bergamo, in northern Italy, in a household saturated with music. His father played accordion late into the evenings. An older brother was a professional musician. By 11, Salvetti had won first prize at the 13th National Guitar Competition of Genova, Italy, the “Pasquale Taraffo” — so relaxed in performance, he was genuinely surprised when he took the top honor.
After earning his master’s degree in Italy, his classical guitar teacher introduced him to Brazilian and Latin American music, and something shifted. In 2015, Salvetti traveled to Brazil, where he met his future wife. He returned to Italy, and together they made the move back to Brazil permanent.
Brazil changed not just where he lived, but how he heard music. “When I came to Brazil, I discovered music as a game,” he told The Journal through his interpreter. “As an experiment of sound. As having the audacity to do something different.” European musicians, he observed, are often constrained by academic tradition. Brazilians invent freely — and that freedom was exactly what he was hungry for.
The result of those years, spent between three cultures and three guitar traditions, is what Salvetti calls simply a “crossover.” The question he once wrestled with — do I play flamenco, classical or Brazilian? — resolved itself through composition. By writing his own music, he no longer had to choose.
At the heart of everything is melody — deeply, characteristically Italian. Salvetti’s deepest ambition as a performer is straightforward: He wants audiences to walk out humming a song. That singable thread runs through all his work, even as Brazilian rhythms pulse beneath it and flamenco technique sharpens every note.
He plays an eight-string guitar — two extra bass strings that widen his dynamic range dramatically. He believes it represents the future of classical guitar.
His published composition collection Dieci Brani Semplici, winner of the Segovia Day Prize, pays tribute to the streets and squares of his hometown of Bergamo. World-renowned composers Marco Pereira and Sergio Assad wrote the introduction to his teaching volumes. His recordings include the 2021 release “Ocho Cuerdas Latinas” and his ambitious 2024 follow-up, “Versatile Compendium” — six volumes drawn from years of quietly accumulated recordings — gathering every musical soul he carries: classical, flamenco, Brazilian, Italian.
San Juan Island resident Alex MacKnight, originally from Brazil, has spent the past two years working to bring his close friend Salvetti to the islands, actively promoting his work and building strong community support. This will be Salvetti’s first time on the San Juan Islands. He has a message for those who come out: “If the people of the San Juan Islands want to experience a new musical journey that combines so many rhythms — something you have never heard before, that is at the same time explosive, sweet, and romantic — that’s what I bring to you.”
