A book to tell Italy through the history of the Sanremo Festival

“The idea is to tell the history of Italy through the history of the Sanremo Festival, without wanting to make an almanac or an encyclopedia”. This is what the writer and journalist Nico Donvito, author of the book ‘Sanremo il Festival’, explains to AdnKronos, with a preface by Amadeus who of this latest edition (from 1 to 5 February at the Ariston theater) is conductor and artistic director, published by ‘publisher D’Idee, out on January 25th and already in pre-order on Amazon. “It can be said that I have been following the Sanremo Festival since I was born … my first memory dates back to when I was just three and a half years old: I was captured by the ‘love top’ of ‘Vattene amore’, played by the duo Amedeo Minghi & Mietta. Then, after a period of sinking, I resumed following him exactly twenty years ago “. And what brought interest in the Festival back to the surface? “I have always loved music and perhaps I realized that I was finally of the right age to recognize in Sanremo the temple of Italian music, with all its value not only artistic but also historical and social”. For Donvito, “the beautiful thing about Sanremo means that everyone can link sounds or words or images to the Festival that in some way have had to do with our life, in every edition there is always something that binds us. Perhaps the most intense memory is that linked to Mia Martini and his interpretation of the song ‘At least you in the universe’, a truly profound performance. But everyone can easily find his own, even if not especially in those great artists, I think of Lucio Dalla or Vasco Rossi or Zucchero, who in some editions arrived even last … “. But, to put it to Pippo Baudo, why is Sanremo Sanremo? “Good question that is difficult to answer: I tried with this book and I would say in conclusion that the main merit of the singing festival is that of being able to renew itself without denying itself. Moreover, it has not remained tied to a patron or a formula, such as it happened instead to events such as’ Canzonissima ‘or’ Festivalbar ‘, Disco per l’Estate’ or ‘Cantagiro’. The Sanremo Festival knows how to renew itself and each artistic direction is attentive to both revivals and emerging proposals, tradition as well as all innovation. In that sense, Amadeus is doing a really big job. ” (by Enzo Bonaiuto)