November - December 2017

Totally unexpected news

The popular music rankings of the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan were announced, and apparently I’ve been the first in the ranking list for “Pop Piano and Keyboards”. Needless to say I'm very happy and I can’t wait to embark myself on this new amazing trip.

On the 13th and 14th of November 2017 we began to audition a bunch of enthusiastic boys and girls determined to enter the school. It has been very nice to have all these young people around us, and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun teaching and learning new things.

The POP class schoolmasters at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, are respectively:

DRUMS: Lele Melotti and Maurizio Dei Lazzaretti
EL. BASS: Paolo Costa and Lorenzo Poli
GUITAR: Rocco Zifarelli
VOCAL COACH: Gabriella Scalise and Paola Folli
COMPOSITION: Fabrizio Bianco
PIANO, KEYS & PROGRAMMING: Danilo Madonia

That’s all folks …

October 2017

After having written the strings for Sergio Dalma’s album, look where is he. Thanks to my friend Claudio Guidetti (the producer) for this reporting.

September 2017

The end of the Zerovskij tour
At the Arena di Verona five mins before the beginning

Last show in the beautiful and amazing Teatro Greco in Taormina

Dale Clevenger and me …
two young men in a silver hair dressing for the last picture of the tour

Principal horn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1966 to 2013, after having played an incredible number of classical records with every amazing musician and conductor on planet earth (Sir Georg Solti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado to name a few), he’s landed on the Zerovskij planet with his wife Giovanna Grassi (second horn), to play Renato scores some of which have been arranged by me. For this reason in the first days of rehearsal when I was pretending to conduct my songs and I saw him sitting with the other players, I was literally shitting my pants, seriously.

Needless to say it has been an honour and a pleasure to spend time chatting about music and life with this maestro.

Hope to see you soon Dale, I wish you all the best to you and Giovanna

😉

August 2017

Sporting Club Monte Carlo
Sound check in the afternoon for an old songs compilation live show, that would make “sorcini” absolutely crazy.

July 2017

The show

A brief stage check, line and sound check.
The calm before the storm.

June 2017

All the score I did for Zerovskij Live show are finished. I’ve arranged, scored, co-written the songs that the actors will sing in the show, plus one quite entertaining song for Zerovskij. It’s about time to rehearse.

By the way, if you work for a Zerovskij show, you should expect “your name to change too” … ⬇︎

May 2017

A very nice surprise this time of the year. My friend and producer Claudio Guidetti, well known as a writer and producer for Eros Ramazzotti, asked me to play and score some orchestral stuff for Sergio Dalma, a very famous Spanish singer. It’s the second time in the last two years that we collaborate: Tony Hadley on 2016 and now Sergio Dalma.

It has been a pleasure to score and play for these two famous singers, and a nice way - after all these years - to share some time chatting and working with Claudio, even if we were located in two separate studios at the same time.

March - April 2017

A new Renato Zero project is coming up and while I’m not musically involved as usual, this time I’ve co-written one song and I’ve supervised the orchestral mixing process of the whole 2CD Zerovskij project.

February 2017

New stuff boiling on the pot … soon more news about it

January 2017

Another 14 shows in January, with very special guests as Eros Ramazzotti, Daniele Bersani, Elio & le Storie Tese and Franco Battiato. It has been a great pleasure and an honour to be an important part of ALT-in-Tour 2016, and hopefully we’ll encounter everybody again as soon as possible.

Above: left side stage - sepia style - with Giorgio, Lele, Paolo and me with the accordion

Below: last picture after the last show … bye bye :)