January 12th, as already announced several times, the Il Volo concert which was held in the beautiful Kyoto temple was screened in various Japanese cinemas.

Il Volo itself sent a video message for this event, here it is..

IGNAZIO= Hello friends from Japan, we are Il Volo.

GIANLUCA= The film of the live concert at the UNESCO world heritage site, the Kiyomizu Dera temple in Kyoto, will be released soon.

PIERO= On this occasion we sang for peace in the world. Go to the cinema to see it.

GIANLUCA= We are waiting for you.

PIERO= Bye.

The video was thus commented on by Weekend-Cinema magazine.

Click here to view Weekend-Cinema article

“IL VOLO”, a new generation vocal unit inheriting the three lead tenors, performed a live dedication at Kiyomizu-dera, a world heritage site for the first time in Asia as part of the World Heritage Series, and has been praised nationally as “IL VOLO to Kiyomizu-dera ~Kyoto World Heritage Live~” Now open. A video message has arrived from Il Volo to the Japanese fans.

Il Volo formed a vocal unit on a popular Italian audition show and surprised many people with his rich singing voice at the young age of 14 or 15. Their one-night-only live performance at Kiyomizu-dera Temple, the Mount Otowa World Heritage Site, will be shown on screen, making them the first foreign artists to do so. Using 13 cameras, including a drone, the video captures footage that normally can’t be seen, such as a blend of the night view of the city where Kyoto Tower sits and the main temple towering over a cliff.

In commemoration of such a precious version of the live theater, a message came from Il Volo to Japanese fans. With the expectations of the live video of the theater, they said: “We sang with hope for world peace.”

The three wear pure white clothes live, but in the video of the message, we will also see them in a black dress!

“IL VOLO in Kiyomizu-dera ~Kyoto World Heritage Live~” will be held for the first time in the Asian area, and it will be the first time in Kiyomizu-dera’s 1250-year history that a foreign artist will be able to enjoy a – Live show premium evening only on a big screen. It will be held in Shinjuku Piccadilly and other locations nationwide. Now available to the public.

IL VOLO: Today our 2022 show at the Kiyomizu Temple will be screened in 15 Japanese cinemas.

Here’s the complete schedule:
12.1 – Sapporo Cinema Frontier, Hokkaidou
12.1 – MOVIX Sendai, Miyagi
12.1 – MOVIX Saitama, Saitama
12.1 – MOVIX Kashinoha, Chiba
12.1 – Shinjyuku Piccadilly, Tokyo
12.1 – MOBUIL, Kanagawa
12.1 – Midland Square Cinema, Aichi
12.1 – MOVIX Kyoto, Kyoto
12.1 – Osaka Stationcity Cinema, Osaka
12.1 – Namba Parks Cinema, Osaka
12.1 – Kino Cinema Koubekokusai, Hyougo
12.1 – Fukuokanakasutaiyou, Fukuoka
9.2 – Cinema Sunshine Numazu, Shizuoka
9.2 – Cinema sunshine Shigenobu, Ehime
9.2 – Tenmonkan Cinema Paradise, Kagoshima

In this photo another article published in a Japanese newspaper.

This is another interview published in Japanese. It is also very beautiful and I’ll give you the translation of it.

“The most intense experience in 15 years of activity” Il Volo’s interview arrives to commemorate the release of “IL VOLO in Kiyomizu-dera ~Kyoto World Heritage Live~”

“IL VOLO”, a new generation vocal group inheriting the three major tenors, held a dedicated live performance at Kiyomizu-dera, a world heritage site for the first time in Asia as part of the World Heritage Series, on January 12 as “IL VOLO in Kiyomizu-dera ~Kyoto World Heritage Live~ “Released nationwide from Sunday (Friday). An interview with Il Volo has arrived. Additionally, additional scene photos have been released, (I’ll share the photos separately -donalee) and special gifts for attendees have been decided.

Il Volo formed a vocal group on a popular Italian TV show, and surprised many people with their rich singing voices at the young age of 14 or 15. Their one-night-only live performance at Kiyomizu-dera Temple, the world heritage site of Mount Otowa, will be shown on the screen, making them the first foreign artists to do so. Utilizing 13 cameras, including a drone, the video captures footage that cannot normally be seen, such as the fusion of the night view of the city where Kyoto Tower stands and the main temple towering over a cliff.

Interviews have arrived from the three members of Il Volo. Regarding the concert at Kiyomizu-dera, they said, “What impressed us the most was the solemnity of Kiyomizu-dera. Also, the warm welcome we received from all the monks left a strong impression on us. It was the most powerful experience in our 15 years of activities to be able to perform bel canto (beautiful resonant voice), which is a musical culture of Japan, at a sacred temple that is a World Heritage Site.” They talked about the warm hospitality of the monks of Kiyomizu-dera Temple, a national treasure, and the solemnity they felt standing on stage.

Also, this Kiyomizudera live performance will be Il Volo’s third visit to Japan since their first visit in 2017. Regarding their impressions of Japanese fans, they said, “We often do various interviews, and we always talk about our Japanese fans. Japanese fans are a role model for fans in terms of how carefully and enthusiastically they listen during concerts. The spring 2024 concert in Japan will be full of wonderful surprises.But before that… We hope that everyone in Japan will enjoy our concert filmed at Kiyomizu-dera Temple in Kyoto last year at the movie theater.’’ We express our gratitude to our enthusiastic Japanese fans and expressed our hopes for our fourth concert in Japan in the spring.

At the end, they addressed the Japanese fans and said, “We talked about the strong impressions we received, but we hope that we can share with the audience the impressions we received during our live performances. I hope that you will be able to experience the feeling of excitement,” they said in the message, wanting to share the excitement they felt on stage.

The newly released photos show various scenes from the live performance, including the scene where the three members of Il Volo perform in beautiful harmony, the way the camera captures them, and Kiyomizu-dera Temple illuminated with colorful lighting.

In addition, special benefits for visitors have been decided. You will receive an original ticket holder with a print of a scene in which the three members of Il Volo are smiling with relief after successfully completing a concert as the first overseas artists in Kiyomizu-dera’s 1250-year history. It’s a useful size that can fit not only live concert tickets, but also movie and stage tickets, travel tickets, etc. Limited quantity.

And this one was published by The Hollywood Reporter Roma. 

You absolutely must read it, it was published in Italian on Christmas day and perhaps you missed it. It was written by Pino Gagliardi who asked very interesting questions about Japan, but also about Sanremo and the habits of Il Volo.

As always, the answers from Gianluca, Piero and Ignazio denote great maturity and also humility.

Click Here to view the The Hollywood Reporter Roma article

Il Volo: We will be in cinemas in Japan (and with an exclusive clip on THR Rome) before arriving in Sanremo with Capolavoro.

On January 12 and February 9, the 2022 concert in Kyoto will be broadcast in the cinemas of the Rising Sun, in the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, one of the most famous and evocative monuments in the country. They are the first to do so in 1250 years. “If we are successful in that country we owe it to a skating champion, their Carolina Kostner”

Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble will celebrate 15 years of long friendship and music together on the Ariston stage, where they return to the competition for the third time after triumphing at the Festival in 2015 with Grande Amore – a song that won Il Volo the podium at the Eurovision Song Contest – and after having achieved third place in 2019 with Musica che resta. “The first time we won it, the second time we celebrated ten years and now we celebrate fifteen years” says the trio who will be competing at the 74th edition of the Sanremo Festival with the song Capolavoro.

However, the new year will open for Il Volo with another extraordinary and international event. On January 12 and February 9, the 2022 concert in Kyoto will be broadcast in cinemas across Japan, in the marvelous Kiyomizu-dera Temple, one of the most famous and evocative temples in all of Japan with a history of 1,250 years. It was a unique event in the world as no foreign artist had ever performed before on the stage built in the main hall. The Japanese public was so enthusiastic about the show of the three Italian artists that it decided to propose the experience of the show again in the cinemas of the main cities of Japan, from Tokyo to Osaka via Kyoto.

After Sanremo the trio will return to the Land of the Rising Sun with a series of new concerts in April before embarking on their World Tour around the world. In Italy, however, after the success of the two-evening event on Canale 5 last May at the Verona Arena, with many great guests belonging to different artistic worlds on the Italian and international scene, Il Volo will return to the Scaliger amphitheater with Tutti Per Uno (a project by Michele Torpedine) with three dates in May.

Where are you right now?

Gianluca Ginoble: I’m in Abruzzo.

Ignazio Boschetto: I’m in Bologna.

Piero Barone: I’m also in Bologna.

How did you end up singing at the oldest temple in Kyoto?

Piero Barone: You must know that in Japan everything was born a few years ago, compared to the United States and Latin America where we have been doing concerts since 2009. Five years ago this strong request arrived, because one of their ice skaters, their champion Yuzuru Hanyu – if we had to make a comparison we could say their Carolino Kostner – he won the ice skating Olympics to the tune of Notte stellata, a song sung by us, recorded in 2011 on our first album.

A piece that we have perhaps never sung live, except in the first concerts. We suddenly received many requests for live performances in Japan and also to be hosted on various television programs. From there our journey in Japan was born.

Haven’t you even been there on holiday?

Piero Barone: No, never! A whole new world for us because we didn’t know that culture. It had been described to us in different ways, but if you don’t go and experience it you can never understand what they are like and above all what their way of living life is – respect for everything and everyone.

Do you remember your first time?

Piero Barone: If I’m not mistaken in 2017. We did our first tour and our first guest appearances on Japanese television programs. In August two years ago we received this beautiful request from those who deal with the protection of the temples of the city of Kyoto. the city of a thousand temples.

They renovated and inaugurated, after a year, the oldest temple in the city: the Kiyomizu-dera. To inaugurate it they expressed the desire to have Il Volo singing inside the columns of that temple, but the characteristic of this sanctuary, which differentiates it from all others, is that it is located overlooking a forest. It was very humid. We arrived dressed in white to sing for no one, in the sense that we had no audience in front of us. It was also difficult to take it back, a particular experience.

Have you felt the spirituality of that place?

Gianluca Ginoble: Each of us experiences spirituality in a very personal way. We define ourselves as spiritual people, certainly not just children of our culture. Japan is such a different place, totally distant, Buddhism and Shinto are strong there. We have adapted to this culture and made it our own, trying to transmit what are also our musical and cultural traditions.

Because it is paradoxical to interpret a musical genre that is linked to our culture in a Buddhist temple. And that’s where the great contrast was successful. This shows that what we do overcomes the cultural barriers of language and music.

The practice of opera singing officially entered the representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity a few days ago. Is it your credit too?

Gianluca Ginoble: We are very proud to bring a piece of our culture. Because then we have seen over time that this type of music is truly what is considered the true Italian spirit, the true tradition, like pizza, spaghetti, Ferrari. It is certainly opera singing that allows us to interpret a certain type of music in such a prestigious place. 

What type of repertoire did you choose for the occasion?

Ignazio Boschetto: In Japan we have always sung the most classical repertoire as a tribute to the three tenors. From there we continued in the wake of the most beautiful classic areas. The nice thing though is that at the end of the concert the last songs are Grande amore and L’amore si move and all the Japanese are there singing with us. And it’s great to see how our repertoire can vary from classical to even something more pop even in Japan.

Every year many opera singing students come to our conservatories from those countries.

Piero Barone: There is a strong attraction from the Asian world towards us and I believe it has always been there. Perhaps today many more young people are approaching this world. Clearly they come to study in Italy because perhaps we have one of the best methods for teaching this art and this way of singing.

There are also many of our compatriots who love this musical genre, opera, and who know what it requires and what studying an opera entails. That is, studying every day. Personally, I frequent opera circles, because in parallel with all this, for a personal thing, I am also preparing an opera journey, studying the arias of the operas.

In this musical genre you are the only ones to have broken into the mainstream.

Piero Barone: Perhaps we are one of the few cases in the musical panorama who sing this genre. For this reason we had many difficulties in the first years, from 2009 to 2015, until we arrived at the Sanremo Festival with Grande Amore. At that point we also managed to conquer the Italian market, because before obviously we were seen as those who sing songs like ‘O sole mio’, those of the Italian tradition abroad. Italy required something new from us, and thanks to Grande Amore the Italian market also opened up for us.

Gianluca Ginoble: This is the right interpretation, in the sense that it is a great truth that we have observed over time. If you sing Nessun Dorma, you won’t attract young people. If, however, you acquire prestige before singing Nessun Dorma, then you capture their attention, because you can convey that type of music first through the credibility of an unreleased song, and with that you arrive at the modernization of Bel Canto.

Thanks to an unreleased song you can attract young people and then you also make them listen to the more classic things. But if you don’t get there first with that, the young people unfortunately don’t arrive, and we see it in the audience who comes to see us, singing only the classical repertoire, which obviously only attracts the older audience.

Will you still use the Festival for this purpose?

Ignazio Boschetto: We already did it in 2017. Having won Sanremo with Grande Amore has brought us a lot of young people who find themselves at our concerts to listen, often for the first time, to Nessun Dorma.

Gianluca Ginoble: Exactly, and it’s really the only way, because opera anyway, and Piero can confirm this, requires a lot of sacrifice. How to learn to play an instrument, the piano, the guitar. Opera is the one that uses the instrument of the voice to the maximum. Surely you can’t get better results with little effort, unfortunately people no longer approach sacrifice. But we also want to be an example from this point of view.

Your Japanese concert will soon be broadcast in cinemas in the Land of the Rising Sun, will you go and promote it?

Piero Barone: No, we won’t go because we have already done a lot of promotion in the past few days with interviews via Zoom, we have been very busy here in Europe. We will go on a ten-day tour in April because we have four concerts as well as several hosted on television.

How are you preparing to face these concerts?

Piero Barone: The Japanese tour set is different from all the other concerts we usually do because we will have a significantly superior orchestra. The orchestral staff will be made up of many more musicians who will be trained by our great conductor, Marcello Rota, who knows what our requests are and knows us well.

Ignazio Boschetto: We will arrive two days early to rehearse our repertoire. Clearly the set list changes in each tour, but usually they are all songs that we rehearse in Italy.

Will you also include the new Sanremo song?

Piero Barone: Hoping it gets there too.

Ignazio Boschetto: Maybe we’ll do the symphonic version.

Ready for the Festival?

Gianluca Ginoble: We were born on that stage which for us on an emotional level is home. Coming back there nine years after the victory, five years after third place, doing it now as thirty-year-olds, is like showing a different version of us. A maturity that we want to show to the public, to our fans, and not only that, perhaps to an even wider audience. We will try to give our best, to truly convey a more mature Il Volo.

Piero Barone: We are going with a different spirit this year to Sanremo, with much more awareness, but we are also much more serene, because before we were always anxious. We are going in the spirit of celebrating these fifteen years, because for us it is a huge achievement.
Being still here is already an achievement, few realize that being a single artist is different from being a group, where there are different ideas, there are always moments of tension, because the ideas perhaps don’t match one another. ‘other. So even demonstrating this esteem that exists between all three is a good result.

Maturity will also involve a change of look, given that you have been dressed like adults practically since you were born.

Gianluca Ginoble: Do you mean that when we were sixteen we dressed like sixty-year-olds?

Ignazio Boschetto: We dressed like adults because it was Bel Canto that necessarily led us to be elegant and dress in a certain way.

Will you be classic this time too?

Gianluca Ginoble: It’s normal that our strength was initially seeing three kids our age with adult voices. That was the key that allowed us to reach so many people. Today we are thirty years old and there will certainly be an evolution, because always being the same, remaining in a comfort zone, does not lead to growth. A little risk is part of progress.

Ignazio Boschetto: I don’t know if others agree with me, but I think that when we were younger we had to maintain a certain distinction in what we did. Now there won’t necessarily be a change of look other than just showing what our three true personalities are.

Piero Barone: A bit like we did with Tutti Per Uno, which was a forerunner of a work that will lead to a new wave next year. We will always be Il Volo and we will never change. Because when we tried to do something too different it went very badly, because we lost our authenticity. So that will always remain, but we must always try to overcome ourselves.

You are the only ones who have been successful among those who emerged from Ti Lascio Una Canzone, the talent that launched you.

Piero Barone: We wish all people to live by and with music. Clearly this is a demanding job. And the most important thing, perhaps our greatest fortune, I believe was to meet people who still collaborate with us, good people, great professionals, like our manager Michele Torpedine, who work 24 hours a day on this project from first day.

We too have had quite particular, turbulent periods, but with seriousness and dedication, we have always overcome everything. There are those who are luckier and those who are less fortunate in meeting people who really care about your project. We also kept in touch with other contestants, we don’t talk much, but we see that other guys continue to sing too. This is really the most important thing, cultivating your passion. We wish everyone to live with music.

Gianluca Ginoble: We succeeded because there are three of us, because maybe if they hadn’t put us together we would never have made it, or maybe the process towards success would have been much slower.

You have to thank Roberto Cenci who invented the trio (Roberto Cenci was the director of TI LASCIO UNA CANZONE, he had the idea of uniting Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca, who had presented themselves individually for the programme)

Piero Barone: It was he who put us together. He was the producer of TI LASCIO UNA CANZONE. We made the auditions individually with him in November 2008 and chose us. Then we reminded him of the three small tenors and joined us.

Gianluca Ginoble: Let’s say that Roberto Cenci is the one who took the three matches and Michele Torpedine lit them. So they were both important and it is right to thank all the people who precisely made us what we are today.

You took part in the soundtrack of the film Hidden Moon composed by Luis Bacalov with the song Hidden Moon, would you like to continue with cinema?

Gianluca Ginoble: A beautiful memory. We recorded the song in 2013 on the second album where there were many unreleased songs. In Mexico it was a great success, where among other things there is a very beautiful Spanish version. Having one of our songs in a successful Italian film, why not? There are many artists like Laura Pausini who have already won the Golden Globe or Davide Donatello. We are very ambitious and will work hard to make these things happen one day.

Piero Barone: Also because today Italian cinema is highly esteemed abroad and is producing great results.

Do you have any cinematographic preferences?

Gianluca Ginoble: Paola Cortellesi’s latest film is very interesting. I really like Christopher Nolan. I loved Oppenheimer very much but also Interstellar, in short all his films.

Piero Barone: There is always tomorrow. Beautiful! It reminded me a lot of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino.

Ignazio Boschetto: I don’t go to the cinema often, I really like Italian cinema. I have a great passion for Edoardo Leo, who I like a lot as an actor. I like cult films like The Green Mile or The Truman Show, for me they are brilliant.

You sing in different languages, Italian aside, which was the easiest and which was the most difficult?

Piero Barone: Perhaps the one we did best is Spanish, we often sing it when we go on tour in South America or Spain. We always record the version of each recording project in Spanish. However, the one that has failed so far is French because during a concert we forgot the lyrics of a song.

Ignazio Barone: But it’s not that it turned out badly, it’s where we had a little more difficulty remembering the words of a French song. German was difficult for me. We recorded Silent Night in German. And for me that was the most difficult, especially for the pronunciation.

Gianluca Ginoble: I like singing in English more than in Italian.

Is it better to sing in Pompeii where you gave a concert in 2015 or in Kyoto?

Gianluca Ginoble: Sorry Italy, but definitely better in Kyoto. I would go and live in Japan. The culture is wonderful.

Ignazio Barone: I remain neutral.

Piero Barone: Pompeii for me! See this is the nice thing about being three.

This last interview was really very long, but I hope you enjoyed it, as I did.

I won’t go on too long, I just want to point out to you in the first video, dedicated to the Japanese public, our young men have a completely different look from what we saw for the communication of the Sanremo song. I want to say and underline that Il Volo will absolutely not lose its identity, but will adapt to the moment and the type of fans. They are multi-faceted chameleon singers, so they can allow this.

Daniela 🤗

Credit to owners of all photos and videos.