Claudio Chieffo (1945-2007)

The Story
of an Encounter

by David Horowitz

Summer 1999. Someone told me that there was a person who really wanted to meet me. A singer. He came out of the crowd at an art exhibit at the Meeting in Rimini, speaking almost no English.  It was hot and hurried, but I agreed to come to his booth at the fair the next day.  I found him, surrounded by his CDs–he pulled out a guitar and spontaneously sang one of his songs, “Come la Rosa” (“Like the Rose”). I was immediately and deeply struck by something in the man and in his music. What happened was a sudden acknowledgment, a deep correspondence of the heart, that was unexpected  and unlikely (a self-taught singer-songwriter from Forlí, and a Jewish professional musician from New York), and, at the same time, fascinating and attractive. Claudio even made me laugh that time when, after asking me where my family was from, he told me that the name Chieffo came exactly from Kiev: “We might even be related!” The desire to work together was the direct consequence of the friendship that started to bloom. When you give time and energy to a friendship you discover how that bears fruit.
We started playing together. I came to Italy a couple of times, then he came to New York to record “Come la Rosa.” In my life, I have played and recorded with lots of people, but Claudio was different. He was deeply “musical;” he had that kind of gift. His music, his songs, are something natural, just as his love for God and for people were part of his nature. I was overwhelmed with sadness when I first heard about his illness and, to tell the truth, my immediate reaction was: “This is not fair...” I felt a sense of injustice. But that was my own reaction, not Claudio’s. Even while fighting with every ounce of strength he could muster up, I never heard him complain about his situation, not even once. When my wife Jan and I came to visit him last summer (2006), we did not think he could possibly live much longer. And we could see this in the eyes of Marta and his children, who are like family to us. Claudio fought as long as he could, then he entrusted himself to God. We kept in touch during the duration of the disease, sharing hope as well as tough times, and we received updates about his condition from Martino. We had planned to go back to the Meeting to bring our music and our New York friends there, but when I realized that maybe Claudio would not be able to hang in there up until the gathering in Rimini, I dropped everything,  packed, and got on a plane. And I am grateful I did it. What did I do? I just stayed there. There was nothing I could do, except being there with my friend Claudio. He knew. When I got there, momentarily re-surfacing from the comatose condition he was falling into, he whispered in English, “How are you?” His friend, the pianist Flavio, had brought a keyboard into the hospital room, and every now and then I would play for Claudio–some improvisations, some of his songs, some of my music...  Marta asked me and Flavio to play for him even on the last day. Claudio was a man totally driven by his Catholic faith, but that was never an obstacle in our friendship; indeed, it was the other way around. When you believe, you have to follow with all of your heart and your self. That’s the way Claudio lived his life, and that’s the reason why we were friends. Claudio was a poet, and his poetry found its fulfillment in his music.
Thank you, Claudio.