Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Sanremo giovani will be a multi evening affair again and on top of that the separate Sanremo Giovani or newcomers final will be held in Sanremo 2025 festival giving us two winners again in 2025 rather than only one - as it should be if you ask me. Just think about some names that have won the newcomers before making it to the Big category: Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, Andrea Bocelli and Francesco Gabbani. Just to name a few. There will be four heats on November 12, 19, 26 and December 3 presented by Eurovision host Alessandro Cattelan each with six participants, three making it further. The semi-final takes place on December 10 and the 12 will become six.  The final takes place on December 18. The six will become three, and also the two selected by AreaSanremo selection will battle out between them for the last spot. That makes four who will travel to Teatro Ariston in Sanremo in February and have the grand final with new songs.  The Sanremo Giovani selection had 564 submis...

Almost a thousend, or exactly 961, songs and videos were sent to Sanremo Giovani  selection. Now a jury (Claudio Fasulo, Gianmarco Mazzi, Massimo Martelli, Leonardo De Amicis and headed by Amadeus) will listen them all and select 60 for live auditions in Rome on October 19-20, including the Castrocaro winners Watt . Out of those sixty 20 will make it to the five televised AmaSanremo shows in late October and November. The grand final takes place on Rai1 on December 17 and only six will make it to Teatro Ariston in March joined by two AreaSanremo qualifiers.  While waiting for the chosen ones let's enjoy the most recent winners including Mahmood and Francesco Gabbani: UPDATE : The 61 chosen ones are here

Sanremo Giovani returns to Treatro Ariston next February after one year's absence when only two tickets were given to the festival, but among the Big and the rest is history. Mahmood won it all. That won't happen again next year. Now it's back to basics and the youngsters compete among themselves and have to wait at least a year to make it among the Big, like Francesco Gabbani and Ermal Meta in recent years. Out of the names below, 20 will be selected in live auditions to perform in television in Marco Liorni's show Italia Sí . The 20 will become first 10 , then five . The five chosen ones will meet in Sanremo the two from AreaSanremo selection, and one from Sanremo Young, or the winner 15-year-old Tecla Insolia.  Among the names several familiar names from various talent shows or previous editions: Federica Abbate, and Giulia Mutti with Icaro aka Antonello Carozza. Leo Gassman, Matteo Costanzo and Nico Arezzo already have X Factor experience, while Samuel P...

Claudio Baglioni has today revealed the 24 that made it through to the Sanremo Giovani selection next month among the nearly 2000 applications. Two of them will make it to Sanremo 2019 among the Big, and who knows.... all the way to Tel Aviv and Eurovision song contest 2019? I'm quite pleased to notice 11/18 of my picks made it (I didn't have energy to listen well the Area Sanremo ones...) Update 15.12.18: Laura Ciriaco's L'inizio has been sacked because too similar to Jason Mraz's I won't give up . She is replaced by Federico Angelucci and L'uomo che verrá .  Andrea Biagioni - Alba piena   Cannella - Nei miei ricordi Cordio - La nostra vita Diego Conti - 3 gradi Einar Ortiz - Centomila volte Federica Abbate - Finalmente Fosco 17 - Dicembre Giulia Mutti - Almeno tre La Rua - Alla mia età si vola La Zero - Nina é brava Laura Ciriaco - L'inizio Le Ore - La mia felpa è come me Mahmood - Gioventú bruciata Marte Marasco -...

The 61st Castrocaro festival for new voices was won by Maria (or Valentina Ergotelli, 23). And as the facts are, she's got as a winner a right to take part in AreaSanremo wherefrom the artists for December Sanremo Giovani will be selected, and two of them will take part in Sanremo 2019 and the winner going to Eurovision... the journey is long but in theory possible. She's got the look, presence and voice - all she needs now is a killer song! The festival that used to be the pool of new talents in times before all Idols, x Factors and similar took over television seems to be in decline as it wasn't even broadcasted live but almost two weeks later of its July 29 date, and late night on Rai2. Ten artists made it to the final and were judged by four judges, among them Jalisse's Alessandra Drusian.  Castrocaro has been a starting point for the careers of Gigliola Cinquetti (she won in 1963 and got a right to participate in Sanremo 1964 and Eurovision), Giuni ...

Tonight's the night. During Sará Sanremo live show on Raiuno the 20 Big ones will be announced, as well as the two Newcomers chosen by a jury among the eight AreaSanremo finalistss but the main plate is the live final of Sarà Sanremo newcomers. Sixteen of them will be fighting for the six places in the festival's Nuove proposte final. This blogger will be watching live and updating as we go: The 20 Big: Roby Facchinetti & Riccardo Fogli - Il segreto del tempo Nina Zilli - Senza appartanere The Kolors - Frida Diodato & Roy Paci - Adesso Mario Biondi - Rivederti Luca Barbarossa - Passame er sale Lo Stato Sociale - Una vita in vacanza Annalisa - Il mondo prima di te Giovanni Caccamo - Eterno Enzo Avitabile & Peppe Servillo - Il coraggio di ogni giorno Ornella Vanoni, Bungaro & Pacifico - Imparare ad amarsi Renzo Rubino - Custodire Noemi - Non smettere mai di cercarmi Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - Non mi avete fatto niente Le Vibrazi...

  Sanremo's Newcomers has the two way selection. Next month Sarà Sanremo , broadcasted live on Raiuno on December 15 will select six of the Newcomers ( Here are the lucky ones ), and two additional names will come from AreaSanremo selection. Out of over 800 submission 145 were invited for live auditions last week in Palafiori in Sanremo and a special committee chose the eight for another live audition including Sanremo's host and artistic director this year, Claudio Baglioni. Two of them will join the Sarà Sanremo qualifiers in the festival next February. Several names have already various talent show experience: Leonardo from Amici, Manuel and Giorgia The Voice.  Andrea Maestrelli - Non è vero Diego Esposito - Voglio stare con te Daniele Ronda - Un'altra bugia Leonardo Monteiro - Bianca Alice Caioli - Specchi rotti Martina Attili - Un incubo ogni giorno Manuel Foresta - Vivo davvero Giorgia Pino - Cose cosi

Tonight in prime time show from Sanremo's Villa Ormond Carlo Conti will reveal the names of the 22 Big artists taking part in the next Sanremo festival, all of them possible Eurovision entrants in Kyiv 2017 as well. There went to be 20 Big but with this change also the provisional set of the festival has changed and the Big will be presenting their song 11 each on the first two nights, and not all on the first night as originally planned. The 67th festival takes place from February 7 to 11, 2017 The curious fact is that the chosen artists themselves don't know yet if they're chosen or not, but will dicover it like the rest of us watching the show on tv. Including Albano, who suffered a heart attack the other day but is quickly recovering.  It seems there will be equal number of female and male artists, all are serious artists and no joke entries by non-singers present this year. Apparently rappers and bands have sent a very few submission this year and thus absent tot...

Videos have been released for the 12 Sanremo Newcomers aka Giovani entries. Six of these will make it through the elimination show Sarà Sanremo on December 12. They will be joined by two artists from the AreaSanremo selection (see below) Aprile & Mangiaracina - Il cielo di Napoli Carola Campagna - Prima che arrivi il giorno Chiara Grispo - Niente è impossibile Francesco Guasti - Universo La Rua - Tutta la vita questa vita Lele - Ora mai Leonardo Lamacchia (Leo Stain) - Ció che resta Maldestro - Canzone per Federica Marianne Mirage - Le canzoni fanno male The Shalalalas - Difficile Tommaso Pini - Cose che danno ansia Valeria - La vita è un'illusione AreaSanremo entries: Carmen Alessandrello - Quell'attimo di noi Carlo Bolacchi - Paolo Fox Braschi - Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli Andrea Corona - Scappare da qui Marika Adele - Giovane Diego Esposito - Come fosse primavera Valeria Farinacci - Insieme Ylenia Lucisano - Riverbero...

AreaSanremo finalists have been chosen for the Newcomers section. Getting confused?  In short: Sanremo's eight Newcomer finalists are chosen via two different paths. Six will come from the open call with their songs, and the 12 finalists will be live on television on December 12 and six of them will proceed to the festival ( They are here ).  The remaining two places are reserved for AreaSanremo selection process and the jury will now select two of them to add to the line up.  Apparently about 600 hopefuls have applied to each selection path. All qualifiers (along with the Big names) will be revealed on the same night in a month. And should the eventual Big winner of the festival decline the ticket to Kyiv, one of these could be going to the Eurovision song contest as well.... Marika Adele (Campisi) - singer-songwriter  Ylenia Lucisano - has already released on album Valeria Farinacci - has tried Amici already (Federico) Braschi  - singer-so...

First news from the Italian riviera of flowers. The 67th Sanremo festival will take place on February 7 to 11, 2017 and the host will be for the third year in a row Carlo Conti, hoping to triple his success with the ratings and praise. Maybe he will be even third time lucky and make his dream of having Laura Pausini as his co-hostess true? Time will tell. Anyways, by now she has also proved she can carry a live tv show, be a hostess, comedienne and singer all at once after her success with Laura & Paola show on Raiuno with Paola Cortellesi. In 2016 he got her only as a guest....  For the rest it seems there won't me any major changes in the formet. Area Sanremo has already started the selection for the two newcomers that will reach the stage of Teatro Ariston, and the rest will come in due time. Also, if and how Sanremo will once again give us the Italian entry for the 2017 Eurovision song contest in Ukraine. This year the winners Stadio opten out in favor of the runner up...

The first four artists and their songs wee presented here , and here come the other four. The four full Italians whose songs are much more Italian and mainstream and Sanremo-esque, except maybe Irama. But I do like all these four, too, more or less. But I guess the winner will be among the other four. Maybe.  Chiara Dello Iacovo (19) comes from Asti and  is fresh from The Voice. She plays piano and guitar and has studied singing, and her aim is to become a good songwriter. She started in English but has then switched into Italian.  Check out her video here and the live here . Francesco Gabbani (33)  from Carrara is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He already tasted success with his band Trikobalto that released two albums, and in 2013 he released his debut solo album. The past two years he has concentrated on writing song for others but now he's back singing himself.  Check out his video here and the live here . Irama (Fi...

Last night the eight newcomer artists and songs were chosen in a live show on Raiuno. And in the end we have a rather interesting group of new voices and talents. And all of sudden also very multi-ethnic as half of the artists have foreign roots. I'm quite thrilled by the songs and the outcome. I will present them in two parts. Let's have a look at them. Let's start with Cécile, or Cécile Ngo Noug (21). She was born in Rome but has roots in Cameroon, and raised by lay nun. She used to be professional basketball player and played also football but now she's a full blown artists: singer, dancer, rapper, plays violin and brings a hot topic to Sanremo: racism. She sings about being called "negra" but when she's naked on the bed the color is not a problem . This song will surely stir the Sanremo spring air and will be very divisive. I wasn't crazy for it first but she gave a very convincing performance on stage and the video will surely raise a few ...