Italian Sinfonia Sanremo Update 2007

* Spotlight on the 2007 Festival di Sanremo *
The 57th Annual Festival of the Italian Song
February 26 to March 3, 2007

· Listen online!

· Host

· The participants

· Guest Stars

· Notes about this year's Festival

· Results

· Last year's Spotlight on Sanremo

· RAI's official Festival di Sanremo site seems to be the most up to date place to get Sanremo info and results online. You can also listen and watch post-Festival coverage on Radio Italia. For TV coverage, the only way in the US to view the festivities live is through RAI International available for a monthly fee on satellite and most digital cable systems. No word yet on if the show will be broadcast on RAI's radio network as well.

Many of this year's songs will be heard on Italian radio while the Festival is taking place. The compilation will be released immediately after the Festival ends and, in some cases, artists will be releasing albums with their new songs during the competition.

Apparently reports are that many clips of the Festival and its happenings are also appearing Google's YouTube.

· Pippo Baudo is back hosting this year's festival. Assisting him will be the former Mrs. Ramazzotti, popular TV hostess Michelle Hunziker.

Guest Stars

The line-up of guests has not been released but international guests are scheduled to include John Legend, Joss Stone, The Scissor Sisters and Norah Jones. Penelope Cruz will sit down on Friday's show for an interview.
Guests on Friday's show will include the most popular Italian singers of the past year which include Battiato, Elisa, Tiziano Ferro, Morandi and Renato Zero.

Some special guests will take a more active part in the festivites. Thurdsday's show will feature some of the festival's competitors singing their new songs with other singers. This used to be a standard Sanremo practice in late 60s and 70s and returned for a bit in the 80s. Among the Italian singers, Enrico Ruggeri will be joining Milva and Michele Zarrillo will sing with Concato. Festivalbar winner R&B singer/songwriter Nate James will sing with Meneguzzi while Nelly Furtado teams up again with Zero Assoluto - both guests will be singing in both English and Italian!

The Festival this year, with the return of Pippo Baudo, reverts back to the most familiar format of the song festival - 2 separate groups, the 20 "big" and the 14 "nuovi proposti," the new artists. No "big" will be eliminated but the giovani will be cut down to 8 by Friday night, the deciding night for the new artists. About 20% of the scoring will be decided by "le giurie di qualità," a group of "quality-control" expert judges made up of not just representatives from the music business but also TV hosts and hostesses as well as actors and actresses, for whatever reason. This year's judges for the campioni will be Alba Parietti, Alessandro D'Alatri, Gabriella Pession, Massimo Ghini, Giancarlo Magalli, Vittorio Caprarica, Serena Autieri, Maurizio De Angelis, Barbara Palombelli and Claudio Coccoluto.
The Giovani will have a separate jury box that will also include a mix of actors and MTV DJs.

Participant	Song	Notes
Al Bano	“Nel perdono”	former winner with wife Romina Power in '84 with "Ci Sara;' finished in 2nd with "Felicita'" in '82
Leda Battisti	“Senza me ti pentirai”	Classically trained singer/songwriter and a favorite among music critics; no relation to Lucio
Gianni and Marcella Bella	“Forever”	Gianni composed this song and has written many of his sister Marcella's hits. Marcella, known simply by her first name, became famous in Italy after performing "Montagne Verdi" in Sanremo '72
Fabio Concato	"Oltre il giardino”	Popular 80s songwriter also performed in the Festival 6 years ago with "Ciao Ninin"
Simone Cristicchi	“Ti regalerò una rosa”	Comedic songwriter who had big hit in 2005 with "Vorrei cantare come Biagio;" finished in 2nd place in New Artists competition last year
Johnny Dorelli	“Meglio così”	70-year old singer and TV host sang with Domenico Modugno in Sanremo '58 and '59, performing Modugno's most famous hits, "Volare" and "Piove"
Roby Facchinetti and (DJ) Francesco	“Vivere normale”	I Pooh's keyboardist and main songwriter hopes to strike gold again (1990, "Uomini Soli"), this time with his son
Amalia Gré	“Amami per sempre”	Southern-Italian Jazz singer who has studied in the States and has performed in clubs in New York
Mango	“Chissà se nevica”	Southern cantautore was a Festival regular during the 80s; his wife was the lead singer of Matia Bazar during the 90s
Piero Mazzocchetti	“Schiavo d’amore”	Abruzzese singer who to this point has only achieved some success in Germany
Paolo Meneguzzi	“Musica”	Making his fourth Festival appearance since 2001, his debut on the Italian music scene
Milva	"The Show Must Go On"	Flame-haired international performer will sing a track written by writer/comic and '94 Festival runner-up Giorgio Faletti
Nada	“Luna in piena”	Early 70s star made her singing debut at Sanremo with "Ma Che Freddo Fa" in '69 and won in '71 with Nicola DiBari ("Il cuore è uno zingaro")
Paolo Rossi	“In Italia si sta male”	Comedian/actor who's performing a song written by the late Rino Gaetano
Antonella Ruggiero	“Canzone fra le guerre”	Original lead singer of Matia Bazar has won the festival with her band in '78 and had a couple of 2nd place finishes in the late 90s
Daniele Silvestri	“La paranza"	Roman cantautore who had the breakout hit of the Festival in 2002 with "Salirò"
Stadio	“Guardami”	Early 80s pop-rock band who continue to enjoy great success on charts
Tosca	“Il terzo fuochista”	Festival winner in 1996 with Ron ("Vorrei incontrarti fra cent'anni")
Velvet	“Tutto da rifare”	Pop-rock band who had hits a couple of years ago with "Dovevo Dirti Molte Cose" and "Boy Band"
Zero Assoluto	“Appena prima di partire”	Performers that had the biggest hit of last year's Sanremo with "Svegliarsi La Mattina", also featured on World Cup 2006 soundtrack