Academy Award-winning Italian film
score composer Nicola Piovani turned 70 on Thursday.
Among his more popular works is the score for the Federico
Fellini film Intervista (Interview), his second of three
collaborations with the famous director, the others being Ginger
and Fred and La voce della luna (The Voice of the Moon).
He has also composed film scores for the likes of directors
Marco Bellocchio, Mario Monicelli, Nanni Moretti, the Taviani
brothers, and Giuseppe Tornatore, to name but a few.
In 1999, he won an Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score
for his compositions for Roberto Benigni's film 'La Vita è
bella', better known to English-speaking audiences as Life Is
Beautiful.
That score was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2000.
Italy awarded him an order of merit in 2001.
Eight years later, France awarded him the title of Knight
of the Order of Arts and Letters for his extensive work with
French directors.
Among his numerous awards he is the winner of three David
di Donatello (Italy's Oscars) and has been twice nominated to
France's Cesar Awards.
Piovani is from the village of Corchiano near Rome, where
his dad sang in the town band.
He graduated in 1967 from the Verdi Conservatory in Milan,
and later studied orchestration with Greek composer Manos
Hadjidakis.
Piovani is also an accomplished musician and conductor
across many genres, from chamber and symphonic music to
traditional Roman folk songs.
With around 150 film scores under his belt, this prolific
musician credits walking by chance into a screening of Ingmar
Bergman's The Seventh Seal at the age of 16 with sparking his
life-long love of film.
In the 1970s Piovani also began working in theater for
directors such as Carlo Cecchi, Luca De Filippo, Vittorio
Gassman and Maurizio Scaparro, and composed three albums with
the late singer-songwriter and poet Fabrizio De André.
He has also worked with some of Italy's best-loved pop
singers, including Francesco De Gregori, Jovanotti, Fiorella
Mannoia, and Gianni Morandi.
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