Interviewing Gianna Nannini is always a pleasure. Her verve and her energy are contagious, but this time she surprised us with a very interesting historical and technical explanation:
Gianna, the last time we spoke was in 2017. A lot of time, and dark times, have gone by in these years, but last summer you finally started your tour “La differenza” again: after covid, do you think the audience is more aware of the value, the involvement and the emotion that live music gives? In my view there is a lot of positivity in seeing the concert with more participation, with more energy. Everything is amplified after it was impossible to be close to one another: in the end that is what a concert is, and it is heightened to the maximum. In Nashville I recorded “la differenza” and I wanted to take my band on tour. It is a powerful band, it is frightening, and the audience senses their skill and is drawn in even more. “La differenza” too brought a lot of enthusiasm, people liked it and I am happy about that.
In fact your latest album was received very well. Among the comments under your music videos you often find words such as “penetrating, emotional, overwhelming voice”, and people write that you manage to sing the emotions that so many share. After so many years of career, do these opinions still move you, do they spur you on? Yes, because a certain kind of music is based very much on introspection and so I look inside myself. Many people who love what I write are not able to bring these things out. It is important, and even healthy, to draw out these feelings and not keep them inside. You have to find the right words to express them. Sometimes they are self-reflections, but not self-indulgence, because one could use one's own sadness to strike harder. I bring them out so that, if they are sad things, they do not happen. And then there is also joy, which has to be shown, not only the darker part of us.
And in these lyrics your voice counts enormously: I discovered that your vocal timbre is distinctive thanks to your ability to produce melismatic notes. Are these the ones that reach the heart of the audience? It is a feature of Italian melodic singing, above all in the south, that not everyone possesses. Melismatic notes are the ability to sing a group of notes on a single syllable at different pitches, and it is a particularity that you perceive even if you do not know the word. Claudio Baglioni, for example, has this technique, which is then used a great deal in opera. I use it in rock in a natural way and distinctive, appreciated harmonies come out of it. Poetry contests in Tuscany and in the centre and south of Italy were even based on who was best at holding the melismatic note the longest.
Let us talk about the featurings you have done recently. You sang with Coez on “Il motivo” but also with a giant like Francesco De Gregori, revisiting your version of “Diamante” by Zucchero, which has a disarming intensity. How much do these collaborations with different generations enrich you? With young artists I like to share my experience together with their freshness, to bring my contribution to that kind of Italian music and to give it an extra gear as well. Of course the collaboration with De Gregori could not be missing: he is the founding father of the folk culture that became the singer-songwriter tradition in Italy. I had already written songs for De Gregori, but this time I wanted to share his voice too, which is beautiful.
Gianna, as well as the Premio Tenco you have also won an award for singer-songwriter rock, for the literary quality of your songs. In short, it is limiting to describe you only as a rock star! I started out as a songwriter and then I sang some of them myself, but the difference lies between when I play with the band and when I play alone with the piano or the guitar. There a particular moment of intimacy is created, in which words are born that have been recognised by these awards. It is always a pleasure to receive them!
After this interview and this fascinating technical explanation of her vocal characteristic, we will have the chance to hear her in Geneva and in Zurich, in a completely new way! Thank you Gianna!
Thursday 1 December 2022, 8.00 pm
Hallenstadion, Zurich
Buy tickets
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Friday 2 December 2022, 8.30 pm
Théâtre du Léman, Geneva
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