Sanremo, Baglioni revolution: "Just separate Big and Young, compete in one category" – TV / Radio – Shows

"Continuing, often, is the hardest choice, but the charm of the business is always proportional to the risk: the greater the risk, the bigger the company." Claudio Baglioni is well aware of what he faces, returning to Sanremo Bar after the success of the time of the last edition. For this he has already taken the company by the horns and here we announce a small great revolution: the Festival number 69 more distinction between Great and Young (or Champions and New proposals). In the race at Ariston, there will be only one category. The so-called young artists will be two and will be selected by a televised on-air competition before Christmas: he will call Sanremo Giovani will occupy the first two nights and four pre-performances, will be broadcast from December 17 to 21 on RaiUno and Radio2, reported on Rai4 and in response on RaiUno. Because "doubling does not mean, simply, replicating" and because, says the art director in a long post on Facebook, "I'm not only interested in a" new Sanremo ", I'm pbadionate about a "new Sanremo".

to the category born more than thirty years ago, it was in 1984 that Eros Ramazzotti with Promised Land won the victory, officiating Pippo Baudo, of the new section New Proposals which has been added to that of the Grand. At the 2019 festival, there will be two novelties: a whole week devoted to young people with a kind of "X Factor" made in Rai and, above all, the fact that "for the first time in the recent history of Sanremo, the two winners of ] Sanremo Youth Festival will rise on the stage of Ariston and will have the same chance to win the competition of all the other singers and even to double the victory ". It must be said that even in the 2004 edition of the festival, directed by Simona Ventura with Gene Gnocchi, the artistic director Tony Renis (among the least-viewed editions of the festival), there was no division in the Big and Young categories but a contest (won by Marco Masini with The Flying Man ).

24 artists under 36 years old will participate in the contest. Attention to new talents that Baglioni has already shown in his first Sanremo, the last February, anticipating the performance of the so-called New Proposals – as already Carlo Conti – and not relegating them at the end of the evening for some irreducible audiences. "The curious thing – continues Baglioni – is that what we call the second week of the festival is second in name, but not in fact, because it will take place in December, anticipating the February festival and becoming, thus, the first week"

SANREMO SPECIAL 2018

"A Sanremo that has something new, interesting, irresistible, perhaps surprising, to say and say in the best possible way": c & n This is what Baglioni says when he talks about "Sanremo new" because, he says, "it's not enough to come back into the game, you have to raise the bar a bit more and try to jump." a few inches higher, try to set a new record. On the contrary, it is extremely difficult to do, but it is the only way to make the race interesting. I could have left, and I have instead chosen to double. "

Baglioni with Michelle Hunziker and Pierfrancesco Favino, protagonists with him in Sanremo 2018

" Who knows me – pursues the artist on Facebook – knows that in my professional career I have never been satisfied and have never backed down from a challenge. Maybe because I always thought that those who, like me, had so many, had to deserve their fortune, if nothing else, by continuing to face it. The Sanremo Festival, which in itself would be a unique case, certainly could not represent the exception to my rule of life, and that is why I decided to double it. "

Confesses that the idea of ​​a" We will be double "i" was already in the lead since before the 2018 edition. On more than one occasion, indeed – continues in the post – j 'said I would have liked a festival that lasted two weeks, an idea born of the need rethink, enrich it, a formula that, at least in its essential elements, seemed to me deserve to be revitalized. "

Thus was born the idea of ​​a whole week dedicated to young people." In addition, more than a young person can represent a novelty? Perhaps because I signed my first record deal that I was not yet major, so much that he had to countersign my father for the guarantee, and I know what it means to defend your identity, your language, your idea of ​​music to become "But the most important news is that, for the first time in the recent history of the singing competition, the two winners of Sanremo Giovani will come on stage and have the same chance to win the contest of all the other singers

"Personally – adds Baglioni – I've always found the simultaneous contrast between Big and New Proposals a little discriminating." I continued to feel it as a concomitant subdivision that has only set up categories that, compared to the value and beauty of the songs, do not make sense.The direct comparison is between words, music, interpretation , understanding, emotion, I think that seventeen, who looks a lot like me and who signed his first album as a miner, would have dreamed of such a condition, such a possibility. And now that seventeen has grown up and became, 50 years later, for the second time, director and "artistic dictator" of Sanremo, he hopes to give that aspiration to someone who will come. In the name of music, in the most important musical show of our country, known and followed in many countries of the world. Sanremo 69 doubles and returns. And try again fate. Ladies and gentlemen, he concludes, make your game. "