Ludovico Einaudi (born 23 November 1955) is an Italian pianist and Alt-Classical musician. After training at the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan and under composer Luciano Berio in the early 1980s, Einaudi started his career as a classical composer and soon began incorporating other styles and genres, including pop, rock, world music, and folk music. Einaudi composed the scores for a number of films and trailers, including Intouchables, I'm Still Here, Doctor Zhivago, and Acquario in 1996, for which he won the Grolla d'oro for best soundtrack. He has also released a number of solo albums of piano and orchestra, notably I Giorni in 2001, Nightbook in 2009, and In a Time Lapse in 2013.
Einaudi began using his style to compose film soundtracks in the mid-1990s. He started with two films by Michele Sordillo, Da qualche parte in città in 1994 and Acquario in 1996, for which he won the Grolla d'oro for best soundtrack. In 1998 he composed the soundtrack with Treno di panna, and that same year wrote the score for Giorni dispari by Dominick Tambasco.
In 2000 he collaborated with Antonello Grimaldi on Un delitto impossible, and he also composed the soundtrack for Fuori del mondo, which was nominated for an Oscar Award and for which he won the Echo Klassik award in Germany in 2002. After the release of his debut album, some excerpts where included in the film Aprile by Nanni Moretti. In 2002 his soundtrack for Luce dei miei occhi was named best soundtrack at the 2002 Italian Music Awards. In 2002 he won an Italian award for Best Film Score for Luce dei miei occhi. Allmusic gave his score for the 2002 TV serial Doctor Zhivago 4.5/5 stars and a glowing review, comparing it in skill to Maurice Jarre's score of the previous film adaptation of the Boris Pasternak novel Doctor Zhivago.
In 2004, his soundtrack for Sotto falso nome received the prize for the best film music at the Avignon Film Festival. He has since either written the scores for a number of films or had his music included in the soundtracks. In 2010 he wrote the music for the trailer of Black Swan His "Due Tramonti" was featured in the film I'm Still Here (2010) directed by Casey Affleck. Einaudi's "Nuvole Bianche" was featured in the film Insidious (2010) directed by James Wan, the British TV-drama This Is England 86 and in the TV-series Derek (2012) directed by and starring Ricky Gervais. Einaudi's Una Mattina and "Fly" were recently featured in the biggest box office movie in French history, Intouchables (2011) directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. To The Intouchables he contributed the tracks "Fly", "Writing Poems", "L'origine nascosta", "Cache-cache", "Una Mattina" and "Primavera." The film This is England featured Fuori dal mondo and Dietro casa. The British TV drama series This is England 88 also contained the tracks "Fuori Dalla Notte", "Solo(Hidden)", "Berlin Song" and "Distacco".