Songwriter underlines creativity for Italian song festival
Xinhua, February 16, 2015 Adjust font size:
An Italian singer-songwriter has underlined the role of creativity for a 65-year-old song festival.
Carlo Facchini, a noted songwriter and musician, said creativity must remain at the center of the annual show of the Sanremo Song Festival, which first started in 1951 and was a launch pad for some of Italy's top singers including Laura Pausini and Eros Ramazzotti.
"The Sanremo Song Festival not so much presents the best of Italy's light music but certainly depicts its average level and trends," Carlo Facchini said, when asked to comment on the show which ended on Saturday.
A total of 28 contestants competed with live performances for five days in northern Italy's Sanremo, known as the "City of flowers" because of the prestige of its floral productions.
Pop opera trio Il Volo, a group formed in 2009, came first in the "Big Artists" section, thus becoming eligible to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015.
Giovanni Caccamo, 24, a young singer-songwriter from Sicily, was the winner among newcomers.
"This year's edition, presented by Carlo Conti, has given much more space to young generations in both the sections," Facchini noted.
"Always in history, songs have told something important about people, and the Sanremo Song Festival has helped to strengthen Italy's culture abroad," singer-songwriter Enrico Ruggeri said.
Ruggeri, who won the festival twice in 1987 and 1993, was on stage among guest stars on Saturday.
"In fact the Sanremo Song Festival must also be an instrument to promote Italian music abroad," Ruggeri said in an interview just hours before Saturday's final.
"Record companies currently tend to bring foreign music to Italy instead of exporting Italian music abroad, and I wish the festival can help reverse this trend," he said.
The Sanremo Song Festival was dedicated to the theme of "family" this year.
Highlights included performances by an elderly couple who have celebrated 65 years of marriage and a family consisting of 16 children.
The 65th festival also featured American actors Charlize Theron and Will Smith, Austrian singer Conchita Wurst as well as many figures from the cultural, scientific and sports world. Enditem