My story today is in memory of Vito Boschetto. 

Let me tell you about the day I fell in Love. Not with one guy but with three. I turned on my TV and there they were three handsome teenagers stepping on the stage at the Detroit Opera House. I had seen them before on American Idol and Good Morning America but, on this day, I would lose my heart to them.

Every note they sang went straight to my heart! Just amazing! Ever song they sang was wonderful but when they sang El Reloj something happened to me! I knew no other group would ever take their place in my life or my heart. They totally reached me with that song! For me I wanted the CLOCK to stop at that moment in time!

Why this song? They sing so many beautiful songs. What was it that captured me that night? It wasn’t so much about the song as it was about the voices. It was how natural the delivery was. Teenagers with such maturity! Such strength in their voices. Voices that flowed through the air! It was the simplicity of this song and how they delivered it that captured me.

Their voices form a symphony. Gianluca’s voice vibrates and expands to realms I’ve never heard before. Ignazio’s voice makes your heart stop as you journey along his notes that lead to absolute ecstasy. Piero’s voice fills all your senses and brings you to such heights that you have to stop and breathe.

If you want to present a voice, in this case three voices, this is the way you do it. They were together for such a short period of time and yet they were perfect!  And it went beyond the voices. It was their personalities, their presentation, their interaction with the audience. They were young but they had it all.  They won the people with their voices but, they totally captured them with their charm and personality.

PBS introduced Il Volo to America. You can  say Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca grew up on PBS. From their first concert on October 27, 2011 at the Detroit Opera House, they won the admiration of the American people and stole their hearts. PBS has been with the guys for every important event in  their lives. You might say it is The Marriage of PBS and Il Volo.

When they began, they introduced America to a new style of music. Operatic pop! A very different kind of music for teenagers. Their aim was to show young people how good this music is. They won over the children, parents and grandparents. They were an immediate sensation. America fell in love with them. But where did it all begin for them. Let’s listen to what the guys had to say about how they were discovered.

Piero will take us back to his grandfather, Pietro Ognibene’s, back yard where he is swinging on a swing that hung from a mulberry tree. His grandfather was sitting on the veranda, as he usually did, at this time of day. His grandfather has been blind for many years and so he always had a tape recorder with him which he used to record music and poetry. Piero’s grandfather is also a singer. On this day he was recording a little Sicilian song which Piero said his grandfather wrote. So, let’s listen to what Piero had to say…

I was swinging on the swing, I was about four or five years old, I was really, very small. I listened to him a little and at a certain point, when he stopped singing, I started: E lu suli, talia, talia, talia. Sopra ‘sta pedra luci ci duna. What can I tell you? It just came out like that.

His grandfather turned off the recorder and called his wife. Rina came out on the terrace and he asked her, “Unni è Piero?” (Where is Piero?)

She replied, “In Altalena” (He is on the swing)

Pietro asked, “Ma cu cantava? Iddu?” (But who was singing? He?)

She replied, “Eh, si.” (yes)

He told Rina to call him.

So, Piero got up and went to his grandfather. Pietro lifted him up and put him on the table next to the recorder and told him to “sing the song again.” Piero sang the song exactly as his grandfather sang it. And so it begins….

Ignazio’s discovery would come about because of Nina’s pianola.

Ignazio remembers, When I was three or four years old – I played with the piano my parents had given my sister, Nina. My mother says I was one years old when I played. Nina taught me to play Happy Birthday with one finger.

Nina’s famous pianola gave Ignazio a passion for music.

Ignazio continues, I do not remember the first day of school, but I certainly did not take long to get noticed. If you’re thinking of scenes of me being put in the middle of the class to sing, forget it. I had a passion for music but, I had an even greater passion for pranks. I tell you, since I started talking and walking, mine was an escalation of agitation.

But as Ignazio explains, this agitation passed and the most important event in his life began to take shape…

With the passage of time, I found something good to do at school, that is, an activity that was able to hold my interest enough to prevent me from slipping into some disaster. I joined the school choir. I always liked to sing, to be ‘in the middle’ of the music. And more and more passionately I began to understand how to make better use of Nina’s famous pianola. I learned how to start the musical bases and flip through them. And that’s when I discovered La Donna È Mobile. I liked it so much that I sang with the base and invented words. I don’t remember the words but, it certainly was a song about Pavarotti. Having seen Pavarotti on TV, I knew he always had a big handkerchief so I would invent text and sing on the air La Donna È Mobile.

It seems at three years old Ignazio was already composing wonderful music!

As we all know eventually, Piero and Ignazio performed La Donna È Mobile.

Gianluca tells us that his life was different from Ignazio but, in many ways like Piero’s.

My life as a child seems so far away. I remember very little of my childhood! I’m not like Ignazio I was born and raised in Montepagano. I was traveling only with dreams. What made me dream? Music naturally. Dad and mom realized that I had something special in my voice when I started to sing at the age of three or four years.

My parents tell me when I was three years old, I sang ’O Sole Mio’ in the town square in front of all the elderly gentlemen friends of my grandfather who, sitting around the bar table, were listening to this little boy with such a particular voice.

Each boy has now been set on the road to PBS so where did they go from here?

Over the years, each boy approached his musical education in a different way.

After his discovery in the garden, Piero embarked on a classical music education.  He began piano lessons at the age of 8. At 10 years old he joined the Little Singers of the Philharmonic Association – Santa Cecilia of Agrigento. And then he began the competitions around Sicily.

In Marsala, Ignazio sang with his first singing teacher Lilliana Andreanò. He continued his singing lessons moving on to other teachers as he progressed. He took three years of piano lessons. He also participated in competitions around Sicily. Even after moving on to other teachers, Ignazio continued his relationship with Lilliana Andreanò. She advised him every step of the way right up to his audition at Ti Lascio Una Canzone which she convinced him to do.

Gianluca, unlike Piero and Ignazio, never had a singing lesson or piano lesson. He joined the Piccolo Choir of Roses. At one of their events, he was discovered.

As you know they all won on Ti Lascio una Canzone. But their biggest win was becoming Il Volo.

After American Idol, they did many shows but the one show that really set them “in flight” in America, was the PBS special “Il Volo Takes Flight.”

Their concert was shown on PBS stations across the US and Canada.

There’s no question that PBS played a major role in the career of Il Volo in America.

Most recently, in their first Raiuno live for TV concert in Verona, we noticed that the guys had matured in body and mind and their voices have gone to another level of magnificence!

We watched them grow but this is different. There’s a beautiful presence about them now. A certain elegance! After fifteen years they haven’t waned, they’ve increased in strength and intensity! There is a certain power in their voices that grabs you from the first note of the concert to the last.

Each guy has grown into his voice and is showing a maturity and style the likes of which men who are approaching the end of their careers can only have imagined! Fifteen years of a lifetime! I use that expression a lot because each year is like a lifetime with them. They never seem to stop. Like in their last Latin American Tour. Not only were there concerts but there were also late-night recording sessions. Thanks to the genius of Ignazio who turned his hotel rooms into recording studios. And when the tour was over, it still wasn’t over. It’s called bringing your work home. There were still the recordings to deal with. Yes, it’s a lifetime full of wonders. One can hardly imagine what goes on. The tour takes on a life of its own. It’s an experience which most entertainers will never know. Or should I say “have the honor of knowing.” For our guys, work is honor!

I’ve worked in this industry, and I’ve seen young people achieve fame and throw it all away on foolishness! Many have achieved fame but what they do with it makes the difference.  These men have shared the fruits of their fame. They didn’t take their fame and run with, they cherished it and used it to help others. They could have gone home to their families until the next tour but no they shared their good fortune. This is what makes them so great. This is what makes them incredible. For this reason, these entertainers are loved by their fans in the most incredible way!

Over the last year I have met with many fans at the various concerts I attended. I asked the fans what it is that they love about the guys on a more personal level. Many said their openness and generosity with the fans. They consider them like family. Some said they are the son they never had or the grandson they admire. Much like the fans who write to me each week. There is a beauty about the relationship between the fans and Il Volo. Il Volo is family!

The fans were the ones who got them through it all when they were young, and they never forget to say thank you! They attribute their fame not to their talent but to the fans who come back time after time, year after year to be with them. No, the fans are not followers in a sense that most fans are! No, they are family that always want to be there for their boys!

It wasn’t always easy for the guys but when they had a goal, they went for it! I remember Ignazio saying in a video when they first came to New York. “This is Radio City! We hope, I hope, everyone hopes to go there to do a big concert for the American people.”

What a dream! Who could possibly have thought that three Italian teenagers could have achieved this dream and stepped on to the stage at Radio City Music Hall and brought us all to absolute ecstasy with their voices!

Most entertainers want to perform at Radio City once in their lifetime! It’s a dream, it’s every entertainer’s dream! Our guys have done it year after year to sold out audiences! And every time is better than the last.

But now I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me just say, all that followed in America  was possible because of their concert on PBS. The Marriage of PBS and Il Volo was a marriage made in heaven.

Now let me turn my attention to a member of the Il Volo family who we are really missing today.

Vito Boschetto

Three years ago we all heard the news about the sudden passing of Ignazio’s father, Vito Boschetto. Each of us stopped to think about Ignazio and, how he must be feeling. There were no words we could expressed to comfort the family.  We just kept them all in our hearts and in our prayers!

Over the years, as we watched Ignazio grow into a fine young man, we grew to understand that it was his parents’ guidance that made him who he is. They are a very proud family. Hard working people. This is a trait we see in Ignazio.

They gave Ignazio such exceptional values that it only made sense he would become the good, kind and compassionate person he is.

When Ignazio speaks about his family he speaks with a passion. The deep bond this family has is exceptional. Even as a very young child Ignazio said his family shared everything. No matter what happened it was discussed with the whole family. Ignazio has said that he admires his parents for their openness with him and Nina.

I write about Ignazio so often that I feel a special closeness to him and, today my heart aches for him. But Ignazio said something recently that touched my heart and the hearts of others. He said his mother told him, “Amore non finisce mai!” (Love never ends!) And this is true. Even when we are separated from the one’s we love that love doesn’t go away. It stays with you forever.  It remains in our hearts.

In the past, Ignazio has said about his parents. Is it the same if the images that I will never forget are …. the memories of my parents? It’s not that I’m crazy or strange, it’s right that my story would never have existed without my parents …. Of sacrifices they have made many and, big for me and for my sister but, more so for me. I do not spend days when I do not think about how proud I am of them.  He said this when his father was still with them.

Vito Boschetto was a man who worked very hard for his family.  He was a mason, a brick layer. He worked at this job right up to the last days of his life.

Vito we all miss you at the concerts and by Ignazio’s side. There is a big void but the love lives on because amore non finisce mai. Our hearts are with your family today!

For your Listening pleasure, I leave you with the PBS/Rai concert in Verona.

Join me next week as I go back Through the Fields of My Mind and bring to you the next exciting adventure of Il Volo.

Capolavoro is available on all digital platforms including Spotify and Amazon Music

Who Wants to Live Forever is available on all digital platforms including Spotify and Amazon Music

If you would like to share a story with me, please email:  susan.flightcrew@yahoo.com

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Credit to owners of all photos and videos.