Giorgia - singer-songwriter

Sanremo victory first of multiple successes

Giorgia has become one of Italy's
most popular performers

The popular singer-songwriter Giorgia Todrani, who performs simply as ‘Giorgia’, was born on this day in 1971 in the Monteverde Vecchio neighbourhood of Rome.

Giorgia, whose vocal ability has seen her compared to the American superstar singer Whitney Houston, rocketed to fame after winning the prestigious Sanremo Music Festival in 1995, less than a year into her recording career.

She has since sold more than 25 million records worldwide. Of her 12 studio albums, five have reached No 1 in the Italian charts, as did a greatest hits compilation released in 2002.  Giorgia has also topped the Italian singles chart on five occasions.

Her 1995 Sanremo winner, Come saprei - How would I know? - which she co-wrote with three others, including the best-selling Italian male star, Eros Ramazzotti, was the first entry to win both the main competition and the critics’ award at the annual festival.

Thirty years later, in 2025, she was strongly tipped to win Sanremo again with La cura per me - The cure for me - from her No 1 album G. Ultimately, the song finished sixth, a result that sparked boos from the audience at the Teatro Ariston, the theatre in the Ligurian resort that has been home to the competition since 1977.

Giorgia was born into a musical household in that her father, Giulio Todrani, was half of the singing duo Juli & Julie, which enjoyed some success in the 1970s and ‘80s. Giulio is said to have chosen the name, Giorgia, for his daughter after a favourite Ray Charles song, Georgia on My Mind. 

After the Juli & Julie duo - in which he partnered with the female singer Angela Bini - went their separate ways in 1989, Giulio formed a soul and rhythm-and-blues group under the name Gli Io Vorrei La Pelle Nera. Giorgia is said to have performed on stage with the group.

Giorgia had some formal singing lessons from the lyric tenor, Luigi Rumbo, who was a member of the Sistine Chapel choir, but it was at Roman jazz clubs such as the Alexanderplatz in Prati, Big Mama in Trastevere and La Palma in Pigneto that she honed her vocal style.

Since winning Sanremo in 1995, Giorgia's
record sales have topped 25 million

The Sanremo Music Festival would play a significant part in her professional breakthrough in the early 1990s.

In 1993, she entered and won Sanremo Giovani, a section of the competition for young artists, with a song called Nasceremo, the prize for which included entry for the Newcomers section in 1994. The bonus for Giorgia was that the 1993 edition of Sanremo Giovani was the first to be televised.

Although her 1994 song, E poi - And Then - finished only seventh in the Newcomers section, it gained enough attention to become a hit single, reaching number two in the Italian chart, matched by the album from which it came, entitled simply Giorgia, which made No 2 in the album chart, selling 180,000 copies in Italy.

That success sparked an invitation to appear with the opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti on one of his famous Pavarotti & Friends charity concerts in Modena as part of a celebrity line-up that included Sting, Bryan Adams and the rising tenor Andrea Bocelli, who had won the Newcomers section at Sanremo in which she had finished seventh.

Giorgia and Bocelli then appeared together at a Christmas Eve concert at the Vatican in front of Pope Paul II, their performance creating enough interest for them to release a single together, Vivo per lei, in 1995.

Of course, it was winning the main Sanremo contest in 1995 that provoked the biggest surge in Giorgia’s popularity. Her second album, Come Thelma & Louise, which included Come saprei, sold eight million copies worldwide and remains her biggest-selling individual album. No less a star than Elton John described her voice as “one of the most beautiful in the world” and invited her to appear as a guest on his upcoming tour of Italy.

A particularly proud moment for her father, Giulio, came in 2000 when Ray Charles, the iconic American soul singer, invited Giorgia to sing Georgia on My Mind at one of his concerts, having heard the story of how she came to be named.

Over time, through collaborations with artists such as Pino Daniele and Herbie Hancock, Giorgia was able to broaden her repertoire away from the ballads of her early success to more up-tempo and experimental music, allowing her to explore the full range of her vocal skills and bring comparisons with some of the most versatile singers in jazz-pop history.

Away from performing, Giorgia has been in a relationship since 2004 with Emanuel Lo, a dancer and teacher on the TV talent show, Amici di Maria De Filippi. The two met during one of the singer's tours and have a son, Samuel, who was born in 2010. 

A previous relationship ended in tragedy when the singer Alex Baroni, her partner of four years, was killed in a motorcycle accident.

She still lives in the Monteverde district of Rome, not far from where she grew up. 

The Villa Pamphilj, with its surrounding park,
is one of the attractions of the Monteverde district

Travel tip:

Monteverde, the area of Rome where Giorgia was born and still lives, can be found to the southwest of the central part of the city, within the Municipio XII rione. It borders Trastevere to the north and sits across the Tiber from Testaccio. Divided into the older Montevecchio Vecchio, characterised by elegant early‑20th‑century villas, and the mainly post-war Monteverde Nuovo, the area is historically middle‑class and artistic, with a long association with musicians, actors and media professionals. Small theatres and music venues abound. Known as a green area, it is home to the Villa Pamphilj, Rome’s largest landscaped park, popular for jogging, walking and relaxing, as well as the smaller park around Villa Sciarra. To the north, the Gianicolo - Janiculum Hill - offers panoramic city views.  The film director Pier Paolo Pasolini often chose the neighbourhood for location shots. Though quieter than neighbouring Trastevere, its restaurants are popular in the evenings and an increasing number of visitors chose to stay in the area, picking it as a quiet escape from the crowds in central Rome, yet close enough to be a base for exploring.

Monteverde hotels from Hotels.com

The Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, which has been
home to the Sanremo Music Festival since 1977

Travel tip:

The resort of Sanremo in Liguria, which has figured prominently in Giorgia’s career, can be found 146km (91 miles) southwest of Genoa as the Italian Riviera extends towards France. Sanremo enjoyed particular prestige even before the music festival, first staged in 1951, put it on the cultural map. The town expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold among the wealthy. Several grand hotels were established and the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia was among the European royals who took holidays there. The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, who bequeathed money in his will to establish the prizes that take his name, was so taken with the elegance of the town after his holiday visits that he made it his permanent home. Known as the City of Flowers, it is characterised by its Stile Liberty architecture (the Italian variant of Art Nouveau), of which the Casinò di Sanremo in Corso degli Inglesi is a beautiful example.  The Casino, in fact, was home to the music festival until 1977, when its closure for renovations obliged the organisers to find an alternative venue. They chose the Teatro Ariston, the town’s largest theatre in Via Matteotti, which is where it has remained.

Choose Expedia for accommodation in Sanremo

More reading:

How Mina became Italy’s all-time top-selling female music star

Laura Pausini, Sanremo winner and first Italian woman to land Grammy

The history of the Sanremo Music Festival

Also on this day:

1538: The birth of painter Gian Paolo Lomazzo

1575: The birth of Maria de’ Medici

1925: The birth of chocolatier Michele Ferrero

1977: The birth of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti 

1993: The birth of rugby player Tommaso Allan

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Pino Daniele - guitarist and songwriter

Naples mourned star with flags at half-mast

Pino Daniele on stage in 1982 in the early part of his
career, when he was already becoming a star

The Neapolitan singer-songwriter and guitarist Pino Daniele died on this day in 2015 in hospital in Rome.

Daniele, whose gift was to fuse his city’s traditional music with blues and jazz, suffered a heart attack after being admitted with breathing difficulties. Because of a history of heart problems, he had been taken to a specialist hospital in Rome after falling ill at his holiday home in Tuscany.

On learning of his death at only 59, the Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris ordered that flags on municipal buildings in the city be flown at half-mast.

Born in 1955, Daniele grew up in a working class family in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, once a notorious hotbed of crime. His father worked at the docks.

As a musician, he was self-taught, mastering the guitar with no formal lessons and developing a unique voice, alternately soaring and soft, and gravelly to the point of sounding almost hoarse.  He named the great American jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and George Benson as his major influences but also drew deeply on the life, culture and traditions of his home city, which he loved.

Daniele taught himself how to play
the guitar

His songs sometimes combined Italian, English and Naples dialect.  One of his best known songs was Napule E, which he wrote as a tribute to the city and its contradictions.

Daniele coined the term "tarumbò" to define his music, which he described as a blend of tarantella, blues and rumba. His lyrics often railed against what he perceived as the social injustices of Naples and broader Italian society.

He released his first album, Terra mia - "My Land" - in 1977 and his popularity grew quickly.  Only four years later, he staged an outdoor concert in Naples that attracted 200,000 fans.  His reputation was further enhanced when he was asked to be the opening act at a Bob Marley concert in Milan.

Terra mia was the first of 24 studio albums, one of the most successful of which was the 1980 release Nero a metà - "Half-black". He also recorded seven live albums and 23 singles. His last recording - Nero a metà Live - captured his performance on stage in Milan only a couple of weeks before he died. It was released after his death.

Daniele’s total record sales have been conservatively estimated at in excess of five million. He was at his peak in the mid-1990s. His 1995 album Non calpestare i fiori nel deserto - “Don’t Step on the Flowers in the Desert” - sold more than 800,000 copies, while Dimmi cosa succede sulla Terra - “Tell me What Happens on Earth” (1997) - topped one million.

He also wrote the lyrics and music, including the hit Quando - "When", for three films directed by his fellow-Neapolitan, the actor-director and comic Massimo Troisi.

Daniele in 2010, at around the time he was performing
in concerts with the legendary Eric Clapton

In 2010, Daniele was invited by his friend Eric Clapton to play at the Crossroads Guitar Festival at Toyota Park in Chicago, and the following year reciprocated by performing in a concert with former Cream lead guitarist Clapton at Cava de' Tirreni stadium.

Daniele was hailed by the great and good after his death. As well as receiving countless tributes from fellow musicians, including his close friend Eros Ramazzotti, the then-prime minister Matteo Renzi spoke of “an incredible voice...precious guitar-playing…” and “a rare sensitivity that was tinged with passion and melancholy that will continue to tell the story of our country to the whole world."

A service for Daniele took place at Rome's Sanctuary of Our Lady of Divine Love before his remains were taken back to Naples, where the funeral had to be moved from the Basilica di San Francesco Di Paola to the Piazza del Plebiscito to accommodate tens of thousands of fans.

Daniele grew up in the working class neighbourhood of
Rione Sanità, at the foot of Capodimonte hill

Travel tip:

The Rione Sanità district of Naples, where Daniele was born and grew up, is situated at the foot of the Capodimonte hill and was once home to some of the richest families in Naples, as the presence of some fine palaces is a reminder. It then fell into disrepair, becoming a notorious slum area, with high unemployment and a dominant Camorra presence.  However, its air of faded grandeur attracted a number of writers and film directors to use it as a backdrop and it has seen something of a revival in recent years, with shops, artistic studios and workshops springing up, and a growing number of bars and restaurants turning into a popular area after dark. Sanità was also the birthplace of the brilliant comic actor Totò.

Porticoes line the historic main
street through the centre of Cava

Travel tip:

Cava de’ Tirreni is a fascinating historical town just a few kilometres inland from Vietri sul Mare, the seaside resort at the southern end of the famed Amalfi Coast, occupying the valley between the cities of Salerno and Nocera Inferiore.  It takes its name from its first inhabitants, the Tyrrhenians, who were descendant from the Etruscans. The focal point of the town is the long, porticoed Corso Umberto, which runs from one end of the centre to the other, eventually turning into the narrow, winding Borgo Scacciaventi, which was Cava’s 15th century shopping centre. With its nearby Benedictine Abbey, the Abbazia della Santissima Trinità, Cava de' Tirreni has been an important destination for travellers since the 17th century and was popular with poets and Grand Tourists in the 19th century.

Also on this day:

1710: The birth of ‘opera buffa’ composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

1881: The birth of Gaetano Merola, founder of the San Francisco Opera

1952: The birth of Mafia executioner Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Greco

1975: The death of Carlo Levi, author of Christ Stopped at Eboli


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