The Sanremo Music Festival (Italian: Festival di Sanremo[ˈfɛstivaldisanˈrɛːmo,festiˈval-]), officially the Italian Song Festival (Italian: Festival della canzone italiana) is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria.[1][2][3][4] It is the longest-running annual TV music competition in the world on a national level (making it one of the world's longest-running television programmes)[5] and it is also the basis and inspiration for the annual Eurovision Song Contest.[6][7]
Unlike other awards in Italy, the Sanremo Music Festival is a competition for new songs, not an award to previous successes (like the Premio regia televisiva [it] for television, the Premio Ubu [it] for stage performances, and the Premio David di Donatello for motion pictures).
The first edition of the Sanremo Music Festival, held between 29 and 31 January 1951, was broadcast by RAI's radio station Rete Rossa, and its only three participants were Nilla Pizzi, Achille Togliani, and Duo Fasano.[8] Starting from 1955, all editions of the festival have been broadcast live by the Italian TV station Rai 1.[9][10]
The songs selected in the competition are in Italian or in any regional language, and the three most voted songs are awarded. Other special awards are also given, including the Critics' Award, created ad hoc by the press in 1982 to reward the quality of Mia Martini's song, and named after the singer in 1996, after her death.
Between 1953 and 1971 (except in 1956), in 1990,[21][22] and 1991,[23] each song was sung twice by two different artists, each one using an individual orchestral arrangement, to illustrate the meaning of the festival as a composers' competition, not a singers' competition. During this era of the festival, it was custom that one version of the song was performed by a native Italian artist while the other version was performed by an international guest artist.[24] This became a way for many international artists to debut their songs on the Italian market, including Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Cher, Gloria Gaynor, Dionne Warwick, Jose Feliciano, Roberto Carlos, Paul Anka, Miriam Makeba, Bonnie Tyler, Shirley Bassey, Mungo Jerry, Kiss, Laura Branigan, and many others.
^Adinolfi, Francesco (2008). Mondo Exotica: Sounds, Visions, Obsessions of the Cocktail Generation. Translated by Pinkus, Karen; Vivrette, Jason. Durham: Duke University Press. pp. x. ISBN9780822341321. OCLC179838406.