Sanremo Music Festival 2022: a guide to Italy's most famous song contest
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Loading... - Simon Sterling
- 03 Feb 2022
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Italy's most popular song contest returns to its usual venue at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo, a seaside town on the northwest Ligurian coast, with 25 artists battling it out over five nights from 1-5 February 2022.
The event, whose official title is the Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo, has been held every year since 1951, making it the world's longest-running annual televised music competition at a national level.
Now in its 72nd edition, Sanremo was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest and the winner often represents Italy in the European competition, which this year will be held in Turin on 14 May.
Claim to fame
Over the years Sanremo has launched the careers of numerous Italian acts, notably Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini, Eros Ramazzotti and Zucchero, as well as last year's winners Mäneskin who will return as special guests in 2022.
However the festival's biggest claim to fame internationally is perhaps Nel blu, dipinto di blu, popularly known as "Volare", a song performed by Italian singer-songwriter Domenico Modugno at the 1958 Sanremo before it took the world by storm.
Love it or hate it
Surrounded by hype, the annual extravaganza tends to divide Italy into the "love it or hate it" camps, along with Italians who profess to never watch it but in reality are among the millions glued to their television screens.
Who hosts Sanremo?
The 2022 host and artistic director, for the third year in a row, is TV presenter Amedeo Sebastiani, better known as Amadeus, who is set to be joined on stage by the popular comedian Fiorello.
A co-host will present the event with Amadeus each night, all of whom are well-known personalities in the world of showbiz: Ornella Muti, Lorena Cesarini, Drusilla Foer, Maria Chiara Giannetta and Sabrina Ferilli.
Notable hosts of Sanremo over the years include veteran TV presenters Pippo Baudo and Mike Bongiorno, who each hosted about a dozen editions of the festival. Read More…
