In this period there are numerous interviews with IL VOLO, but this one of Accessori Fashion Magazine, is really different, in particular for the attached photo shoot performed by Angelo Lanza and fashion editor Luca Termine.
The article is translated into English, so I will report it to you.
A bright flash to caress the smile of the models and the elegance of fabrics.
Latin atmosphere as musical soundscape.
Sometimes, to the rhythm of loudspeakers is joined by a warm, powerful, precise voice that accompanies the riff in the fascinating typical acoustics of a theater (even if it is a studio).
Time passes, shots alternate, and you discover that there are three tonalities.
Three voices that every now and then break the march of the shutter and the hum of lights, notes filled with the youth and passion of Piero Barone, Gianluca Ginoble and Ignazio Boschetto echoing ten years of career of “IL VOLO”, in tour all over Italy starting from June, until the big show on September 24th at the Arena in Verona.
Their success, in a couple of frames: the first Italian artists in history to sign a contract with an American major star of world discography; they took part in Barbra Streisand’s “Back to Brooklyn” tour in 2012; they held 50 sold-out dates from Canada to South America in 2013, winning the Sanremo Festival two years later and sing almost anywhere in the world.
For example, in the Abbey Road studios in London, where they perceive “the magic of a place where history was written”.
When this year, in Panama, during World Youth Day, they sang in front of the Pope, they realised that they could not have asked for better beginning of the celebrations of their artistic anniversary: “An inexplicable moment and emotion – remembers Piero – We were immersed in a deafening silence. Only the beats of our hearts echoed.”
And the magic repeats itself, given that in May they started a new tour that, for a whole year, will take them to Japan, Europe and America.
In the Italian spirit they identify part of the reasons for their success: “We always say it: we don’t do anything in particular. Our success is not only due to our voices, but above all to the music we sing, the music of the Italian tradition, although re-proposed in modern key.”
It is possible to perceive the three different personalities, in their last album Musica (Sony Music). A sort of journey throught their souls, between Piero’s more classic direction, to reach the vein pop of Ignazio.
He explains how it is possible, at the age of 25, to hold a decade of success: “The great thing is that we can turn work into fun. That’s what we love to do, so we never stop to appreciate the luck we have.”
And how do they deal with fashion?
Gianluca appreciates Tom Ford, because he manages to express a particular, always very elegant, but also eccentric, and never ordinary personality.
For Ignazio, the choice falls on Saint Laurent, which combines simplicity, sportiness and elegance.
Piero, who has a total black soul, inevitably says the name of Giorgio Armani, to then quote Dolce & Gabbana and Brioni among his favourites.
And if there is variety in clothing tastes, it is on the shoes that all three agree without a shadow of a doubt: they would all just buy sneakers. Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, or Armani sneakers, worn this year on the Ariston stage.
And here is the funny and nice moment of the backstage of the photo shoot.
What to say, the service speaks for itself: fun, funny, cheerful and fresh.
Congratulations!!
BIANCA MAGAZINE, has dedicated the cover to IL VOLO and inside there is a nice article by Omar Gelsomino, which I now translate for you.
IL VOLO, WE SING OUR TRADITION IN THE WORLD.
When we saw them on TV for the first time, they were single beginners at the second edition of TI LASCIO UNA CANZONE. Since then Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto(both Sicilians, the first from Naro, in the Agrigento area; the second from Marsala, in the province of Trapani) and Gianluca Ginoble, from Abruzzo, have come a long way and since 2009, they have “taken off” as IL VOLO. This is the name of this extraordinary trio that in 10 years, from the talent of Antonella Clerici onwards, signed a contract with Universal and then with Sony, sang for the greatest personalities in the world, dueted with international stars, done and continue to do sold-out tours in every part of the globe, and in 2015 won the Sanremo Festival with “Grande Amore”.
We saw them at the cinema with “Notte Magica”, a concert film that marked the stages of the silimar “A Tribute To The Three Tenors”, recently in a film “Un Amore Così Grande”, and now engaged in their “Musica Tour”.
Three different personalities, but who are you really?
We are three guys with a great desire to make music and share what we love doing. Three boys, with completely different personalities, united by the passion for the same musical genre, a little forgotten, and we are trying in every way to bring back again among the “young”.
From a talent to global success. How do you experience it?
We live it with a lot of tension, as it gives you the incentive to produce new things, to make music, to never give up.
Our typical day is marked by the 24-hour workday, we can’t imagine our life without this work, the last thing the artist does is get on stage and sing, before the whole job is behind.
The people who are close to me every day, see me one day nervous, one day very happy , one day thoughtful, one day tense, we all have the stimulus and the question mark of tomorrow, but we must always enjoy the moment. (Piero’s words).
If you look back, what and how do you see yourself?
We see three very privileged boys, looking at our past we cannot but believe in destiny.
If one of us had participated in the first or third edition of that program, IL VOLO would not have been born.
Since then, thanks to Michele Torpedine, our current manager, we have done a lot of work.
How you have changed?
On the positive side, but also on the negative side (they joke).
We have grown humanly and professionally.
It is clear that each of us has his own needs, he wants to spend the holidays alone, he wants to be more alone.
We cannot complain, clearly as any marriage or cohabitation there are moments of discussion, the most mature thing for a group and for any relationship is to find the right compromise, a meeting point.
How do you feel, being ambassadors of the Bel Canto in the world?
It is a great responsibility. Pavarotti, Bocelli and Il Volo share the same songs.
People living in the wild cannot wait to hear “O sole mio”, “Torna a Surriento”, “Nessun dorma”, “Libiamo”.
Our success is due to the echo and strength of the Italian musical tradition.
Among the celebrities you have met, who has impressed you the most?
Each of us has his favorite, when we signed the tour contract with Barbra Streisand we didn’t realize how important and great the meeting was.
A magical moment that I will carry throughout my life and tell my grandchildren, it was two years ago, when we were next to Placido Domingo (We grew up listening to his music, I always listen to him because I am an opera lover, points out Piero Barone.), an icon of classical music who gave us advice on how to sing.
It is the luck of our work, a way of life, it leads you to sing with Placido Domingo, a moment of extreme difficulty and two days later you find yourself in front of the Pope in front of one million people!
There are mood swings and moods that are difficult to control.
When you look in the mirror, the most important thing to do is to think, “What can we do tomorrow?”
We think of tomorrow, never cradle ourselves in success and what it gives you, and never say, me, me, me.
You returned to Sanremo celebrating ten years of career, what did you feel?
We felt so much emotion to sing there. The edition of TI LASCIO UNA CANZONE in 2009, took place right at the Ariston Theater, so that stage saw us being born. Last year we went as guests, this year instead as competitors.
The stage is a moment of sharing, whether you are a guest or a competitor, people are there to listen to you, the rest are just circumstances.
Tell us about “Musica Che Resta”, the song you brought to Sanremo and your new album Musica ……
This album is particular because it contains our other musical tastes, explains Gianluca, we believed that it was necessary to satisfy our three tastes and our personalities: “Be my love” is close to Piero, “Arrivederci Roma” is more my genre , while “A Chi Mi Dice”, to Ignazio.
“Musica Che Resta” is a fairly representative piece for IL VOLO, so we called Gianna Nannini, because it was missing that rock feel. When we sing this song, we perfectly express our vocals and we can’t wait to go back on tour, in June and July, among other things we will do two concerts in Sicily, on July 21st in Palermo and July 23rd in Taormina.
In what spirit did you start this new tour?
With a smile. With this tour, we celebrate our 10-year career in front of our audience, our fans, those who have allowed this.
The public is the reason we live.
We consider ourselves privileged and for this reason we thank them, because they allows us to share our gift, our voice and our passion.
What are your future plans?
There are so many, but IL VOLO’s goal is to confirm and consolidate everything we’ve done in the past.
A really nice interview, with questions that are by no means trivial.
The boys always respond impeccably, and their answers make us discover more and more their personalities who have matured, but who have not deviated from the main road.
When good articles are published about our guys, we all enjoy it and this is a really nice article published by IL CORRIERE DELLA SERA in the section: The beauty of people – The interview. The article is by Maria Egizia Fiaschetti.
Il Volo: “We are antipathetic? Who insults is perhaps ashamed of his origins.”
Irritating, snooty, bimbiminchia (a really bad word that means so many bad things about the guys) …. The “tenorini” del Volo, have received so many criticisms – Piero Barone, Ignazio Boschetto and Gianluca Ginoble – up to the insults in the press room in Sanremo while they climbed on the podium, behind Ultimo and Mahmood, with “MUSICA CHE RESTA”.
More mud in 2015: from a hotel in Locarno they accuse them of having devastated a room. The manager of the structure denies, but the online shaming machine, the web lynching, has already been set in motion. Yet, looking at these three boys in their twenties with the face of those who have learned to manage success but not to the point of not caring about the attacks, one wonders what causes such dislike.
Why do they have it in for you?
Boschetto: “Many do not know us, but in Sanremo we had lunch with some journalists and they changed their minds. We tend to label a person, a bit like judging a book from the cover. We are aware that our music is not in step with what Ghali, Sfera Ebbasta, Frah Quintale do … perhaps we are unpleasant because we propose a genre that pleases, but is not fashionable”. Barone: “Our manager (Michele Torpedine) launched Andrea Bocelli and told us that, at the beginning, he also received the same criticisms”.
As the trappers advance, don’t you fear being anachronistic with your lyric pop?
Barone: “It is as if those who call us ancient are ashamed of their origins … At World Youth Day in Panama we sang the “Hail Mary, Mater Misericordiae” before Pope Francis and a million people. We respect any musical genre and we are happy for the trappers because we do not take anything away from them, nor we from them”. Ginoble: “We make popular national music which has now become a derogatory term, but is rooted in the most authentic traditions of our country”. Barone: “We are unique, we propose a genre in which none of our peers has tried. We do not enter the radio, and we suffer a little, but our strengths are others. We offer the most symphonic version abroad because we are the ones to bring the Italian tradition to the great American arenas after Modugno, Pavarotti and Bocelli”. Ginoble: “But the new album MUSICAis dedicated more to the Italian public thanks to Sanremo, where we proposed a song with contemporary sounds, less set. For our country we have chosen a modern repertoire, which is reflected in the vocal evolution: it is the proof that we are able to excite even with different things”.
You are still boys, but you find yourself already celebrating ten years of career: do you ever think that, after such an unstoppable rise, the public can lose interest in your music?
Barone: “We must know how to reinvent ourselves every day, but without losing our identity. Then, of course, we are mature enough to recognize our limitations. We can’t do reggaeton if we’re IL VOLO.” Ginoble: “It is one thing to manage the career of IL VOLO in other countries, another in Italy. Here you eat pasta every day, in America one evening out for dinner. Our music abroad is a bit like gastronomy, but not only do emigrants like it … (Gianluca says this, because critics have said that IL VOLO’s music abroad was heard only by emigrants = Daniela) Heads of state also come to our concerts, I would like to tell that journalist who, years ago, claimed that we sang in American pizzerias … maybe he doesn’t know that we performed at Radio City Music Hall.”
After ten years together, how can you keep the ego and the ambitions of soloists in check?
Barone: “Fortunately we all come from small towns with a few thousand inhabitants and this has helped us maintain maturity in the group. Then every now and then the spark escapes us, but … ” Ginoble:“The whims are there, especially in times of stress, but we have the strength to look at each other and admit mistakes.”
What are you fighting for?
Barone: “Today, for example, this individual (Ignazio) woke up at 11:30 am while we were already in a meeting at 9 am. He didn’t know anything, he says, but why doesn’t he care? He doesn’t have a secretary, I’m a colleague of his …”.
Have you ever had a fight before a concert?
Barone: “For that matter, even on stage, it happened last year in Taormina. Ignazio is a Juventus fan, who lost 4 to 1 in the Champions League final. To tease him I kept repeating: ‘Mamma mia, how hot it is today’.”
And he?
Boschetto: “I told him: ‘Out do what you want, but, on stage, don’t break the cabbasisi.’ (Sicilian dialect word, the meaning of the sentence is “do not break the balls” – Daniela)
Do you recognize yourself in the image of ancient boys?
Barone: “We are very responsible and disciplined. Gym, healthy food … This generation, on the other hand, scares me. I am worried about the lyrics of certain songs, too explicit, which do not convey positive examples. Once the messages were ‘I’m not worthy of you’ by Gianni Morandi, ‘red roses for you’ by Massimo Ranieri … I don’t say we should go back to that language, but neither boast of not using condoms or taking drugs.”
The transgression, however, has always characterized a certain way of making music.
Ginoble: “The artists of the Sixties and Seventies based their career on transgression, it was a lifestyle. Today it is a fashion. Vasco’s reckless life is true, he had it ….” (Vasco is an Italian singer – Daniela)
Boschetto:“Getting close to hard drugs scares me, I get anxious just thinking about it.”
Are fans writing to tell you about their problems?
Boschetto: “Yes, I remember a girl in Argentina full of scars, she cut herself. She said to me: ‘Thanks to you I don’t do these things anymore.’ Today, they almost instigate you to do it ….” Barone: “It strikes me that many teenagers, when we take a selfie, stay out of the frame, we only see the eye … I ask: ‘Why don’t you enter the picture?’ They answer: ‘No, I’m ugly.’ They fear the judgment of others.”
Yet on social media it’s all a show off.
Barone: “Social media is the spectacle of nothing.”
The old-fashioned air, the antithesis of the beautiful and the damned, does it work?
Ginoble: “At the age of 15 they were already knocking at our hotel rooms in three, four. We watched from the peephole and, if they were not to our liking, we asked the reception to call security ….”
Did you do it even with the prettiest?
Ginoble:“Do you think that three teenagers who are a little unlucky, who find themselves performing all over the world from the country, have had problems getting them in?”
In short, gentlemen or conqueros?
Barone: “The only important story I had was recently closed, it lasted seven months …”.
Why did you leave?
Barone: “I don’t talk about this, but I can say that I’m looking for a simple, dynamic, sporty girl … one that when I call her from the other side of the world and ask her what she’s doing, don’t answer me: ‘I’m bored.’” Ginoble (the only one of the three with a girlfriend): “The woman to marry must be elegant, sensitive, intelligent.”
Like your Francesca?
Barone: “At every meeting he makes video calls, in fact why don’t you call her now?” Silence. A hint of blush, while showing a picture of a bunch of flowers on the phone.
Is that your gift?
Ginoble: “Yes, for our anniversary, on the 13th of the month, we got together in July.” Boschetto: “We are still at the ‘mesiversary’ (month anniversary) … I, on the other hand, have always been afraid of a relationship, if I am not one hundred percent convinced I prefer to stay one step back. I’m not the type who uses women in a relationship, I always put the feeling.”
The next commitments?
Boschetto: “In May the tour in Japan. In summer we will be all over Italy, then in Europe, the United States and South America until 2020.”
Finally a nice interview in a newspaper.
Yes, I must say that something has changed in the critics, towards IL VOLO, after the bad episodes of Sanremo.
Our boys have not changed, but the negative attitude that many journalists had towards them in an absurd way has changed.
The theater that will host IL VOLO is very beautiful.
Everything is ready, last moments in the backstage, sent by our beautiful baritone.
The evening program booklet is also very nice.
The concert will be set to the NOTTE MAGICA program, but there will certainly be variations.
And here is the list of songs that will be performed in the concert.
A really intense program.
It is very similar to the NOTTE MAGICA program, but with some variations.
The following have been introduced:
“QUESTA O QUELLA” taken from IL Rigoletto,
“NOTTE STELLATA”(lately they sing this only in Japan and instead we would like to hear it everywhere),
“LAMENTO DI FEDERICO” from the Arlesiana,
“BE MY LOVE” and“MUSICA CHE RESTA” from the last CD.
Furthermore “O ‘PAESE D’O SOLE” is sung by all three and not only by Piero and Ignazio.
Unfortunately in Japan, it is not allowed to make video footage while the concert is taking place, therefore there are no videos, only a very short video of the concert already finished with standing ovation, taken by Mrs. Lenora.
And here are the only photos of the concert.
The Japanese are very observant of the rules.
However we can guess that it was a success, and we wish Piero, Ignazio and GIanluca to continue their tour with great success …… and we hope, for us, to be able to see some videos!
The boys continue to be hosted in the various programs, here they are in the UTACON show, where the boys sing a small song in Japanese.
Very nice as usual and always available for photos.
What do you think about the concert program and the new songs included?
It is clear that the program will not be the same here in Italy and also in the US.
I think it’s a very intense program and honestly I’m curious to hear Rigoletto and Arlesiana.
I also think that these guys can do everything, and range from a classic program to a pop with great ease and this is certainly not for everyone.
We’ve known it for a long time Japan was on the horizon.
The boys arrived in “the land of the rising sun” and have already had some commitments.
Here they are upon their arrival.
Visit to Sony Music Japan and the announcement of the start of the tour.
The promo link from Sony Music Japan, of “NOTTE STELLATA”.
Short interview in the program Music Station, in Tokyo.
I= In these photos, there are our passions: fashion, football, music.
G= It is also an honor to be close to these great characters, whom we dreamed of meeting as children, and whom we then met.
P= Singing in front of Pope Francis was a great thrill and also in front of a million people and this is the most beautiful selfie of our life.
P= Hi, I’m Piero
I= I am Ignazio
G= and I’m Gianluca
P= and we are IL VOLO.
I= Our favorite song, lately is “Shallow”, by Lady Gaga
P= and Bradley Cooper
G = also has also won the Oscar, is one of the most beautiful songs ever, of the last period.
P + I + G= Goodbye, goodbye.
But here we are at the most important moment of the program, IL VOLO performs “NOTTE STELLATA”.
There are no words, this short video of “Notte Stellata” gives us a sweet execution made by our boys. Superb, even if shortened for program needs.
Magnificent words related to this video by Valeria Bosch:
HOW YOU CAN FALL IN AN “ENCHANTMENT” – A video of just over two minutes, shot in Tokyo, in a television studio: three young and handsome boys with unique voices, already beautiful at the beginning, but now, as that the maturation proceeds, even more penetrating, passionate and sensual, a timeless music, “The swan” by Camille Saint Saens, arranged by Tony Renis (“Notte Stellata”), a skater who designs magical evolutions on the ice. It is possible that all this could cause an enchantment, indeed I would like to say, with the permission of Dante Alighieri, an “enchantment” why does it seem to me that I can capture the state of grace in which I felt immersed ?
The degree of perfection to which these youngsters have arrived in solo interventions, in the fusion of the voices, in the musical harmony, in the understanding between them, I think has no worthy comparison in any other musical group in the world: Gianluca starts with that voice persuasive and velvety that immediately immerses you in a special world, made of dream, love, pure romanticism; Piero then softens his powerful voice to prolong the magic and dilate it so much that you seem to be completely enveloped in it, and Ignazio takes you to the stars, enchants you, fascinates you, forces you to hold your breath, until Gian returns to you with his singing an incomparable sweetness.
Three male voices of a poignant beauty, more and more ductile, ever more melodious, sweet and powerful at the same time, singing the eternal law of love, passion and dream.
Valeria Bosch.
Some shots of “life in Japan”…
Here is the full video of IL VOLO’s stay at the MUSIC STATION show.
Yes, the tour is officially starting.
And then it will be a very long run from Japan to Italy, and then Europe.
In lightning will also come from you and the long wait will be over.
Did you enjoy performing Starry Night?
Daniela
Credit to owners of all photos and videos.
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