2/17/14                    

Hi Everyone,

It’s only a few weeks until Il Volo is back in the USA, yay!!! Makes us feel better when they’re here!!

It’s been an exciting week for “The Boys” they went to Rome and met the Pope!!!  In the pictures published we can see Piero giving “The Holy Father” CD’s and DVD’s. I hope he enjoys them!!!                     

Did you know How to introduce the Pope?

More excitement when Il Volo was nominated for 2 Latin Billboard awards and for 3 World Music awards!! Their tour last year has certainly made them and their beautiful voices more well known. They are receiving more recognition from their peers. We Ilvolovers, of course knew it all along!!!

If you have not voted for The World Music Awards, click on the link below to vote!

http://www.worldmusicawards.com/index.php/vote/

Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3, 1926, in Astoria, Queens, New York City, to grocer John Benedetto and seamstress Anna Suraci.In 1906, John had emigrated from Podàrgoni,a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria. Anna had been born in the U.S. shortly after her parents also emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899. Other relatives came over as well as part of the mass migration of Italians to America. Tony has an older sister, Mary, and an older brother, John Jr.  With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty. John Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature and a compassion for human suffering.

Raised in New York City, Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in the European Theatre. Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records, and had his first number-one popular song with “Because of You” in 1951. Several top hits such as “Rags to Riches” followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. His career and his personal life then suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.

Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his audience to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact. He remains a popular and critically praised recording artist and concert performer in the 2010s. Bennett has won 17 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 2001) and two Emmy Awards, and has been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide.

Tony Bennett continues to make appearances at the wonderful age of 87!!

Piero visited Milan last week. Here is a look at this historic city.

Milan (English; Italian: Milano [miˈlaːno] Milanese: Milan [miˈlaŋ]) is the second most  populous city in Italy and the capital of Lombardy. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area is the 5th largest in the EU with an estimated population of about 5,248,000. The massive suburban sprawl that followed the post-war boom of the 1950s–60s and the growth of a vast commuter belt, suggest that socioeconomic linkages have expanded well beyond the boundaries of its administrative limits and its agglomeration, creating a metropolitan region of 7-9 million people, stretching over the provinces of Milan, Bergamo, Como, Lecco, Lodi,  and Brianza, Pavia, Varese and Novara. It has been suggested that the Milan metropolitan region is part of the so-called Blue Banana, the area of Europe with the highest population and industrial density.         

Milan was founded by the Insubres, a Celtic people. The city was later conquered by the Romans, becoming the capital of the Western Roman Empire. During the Middle Ages, Milan flourished as a commercial and banking center. In the course of centuries, it has been alternatively dominated by France, Habsburg Spain, and Austria, until when in 1859 the city was eventually annexed by the new Kingdom of Italy. During the early 1900s, Milan led the industrialization process of the young nation, being at the very center of the economic, social and political debate. Badly affected by the World War II devastations, and after a harsh Nazi occupation, the city became the main centre of the Italian Resistance. In post-war years, the city enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, attracting large flows of immigrants from rural Southern Italy. During the last decades, Milan has seen a dramatic rise in the number of international migrants, and today more than one sixth of it’s population is foreign born.

DID YOU KNOW?

Updated biographies of Il Volo will be here soon, so be on the lookout!!

Piero, Ignazio and Gianluca we look forward to your return!! Love and Luck,

Linda