Andrea Bocelli
Andrea Bocelli is well known in the entertainment industry for his many talents including singing, writing and producing music. He was born on 22nd September 1958 and although many people do not know, he suffers from glaucoma which affects the vision, often leaving you completely blind. Andrea has recorded four complete opera’s over the span of his musical career including Tosca La Bohème, Il Trovatore, and Werther.
Andrea Bocelli was born in a small town in Tuscany, Italy where he was raised with a constant love of music and learned how to play the local church organ from a very young age. When he was just 12 years old he began to enter various different singing competitions and won the Margherita d’Oro in Viareggio with “‘O Sole Mio” this was to be the start of his musical career.
However, tragedy struck that same year when Andrea was left blind after an accident whilst playing a game of football and the disease glaucoma. He remained strong and focused harder on his musical career taking singing lessons from Luciano Bettarini a respected maestro, who helped him to break into the music scene full time.
In 1992 a lucky break came when Italian rock star Zucchero Fornaciari was searching for a group of tenors to duet with him on his new song ‘Miserere’ he met Andrea Bocelli who was auditioning for the part and was extremely impressed with his talent. Popular opera singer Luciano Pavarotti was eventually chosen to feature on the song, but Andrea was lucky enough to accompany Zucchero on his European tour.
In 1994 Bocelli received his first gold record for his performance of “Il Mare Calmo Della Sera” at the Sanremo Festival, and went on to have an extremely prosperous year by having the honour of performing for Pope Jean Paul II at Christmas and singing at a benefit concert arranged by Pavarotti in Modena.
He released his album ‘Bocelli’ in 1995 which proved to be a big success in several different countries worldwide.
Bocelli and acclaimed UK soprano singer Sarah Brightman performed a duet together in 1996 which was extremely popular, the song ‘Time to say goodbye’ broke sales records and hit the top pf the charts in Germany and around the world. Due to this sudden wave of popularity he went on to release several more highly regarded albums over the next few years such as the classic ‘Amore’.
Most recently you will have seen Andrea Bocelli working closely with contestants from the TV show ‘American Idol’. He still has an active music career, performing in various different shows and concerts worldwide with the same unmistakable passion and love for music that lead him to where he is today.
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Jeff Post said,
May 19, 2007 @ 10:33 am
When I saw the ”under desert sky” tape in a store , I wanted it and my Son Jason [ a tenor singer ] wanted a Cristmas suggestion for me — I told him either that DVD or a mustache trimmer. The next day I broke down and bought the tape — I went home and there was a tape in my mail box from my brother who knew nothing about my want for it. I mailed that one to my daughter who has four sons who like to sing in church etc. I am sharing one with my church choir director and have shown it to various friends. I have a DVD player next to my computer and play it a lot while doing my e-mail catchups. JEFF