Saturday, November 15, 2014

Remembering Gianni Ferrio

Giovanni Achille ‘Gianni’ Ferrio was born on November 15, 1924 in Vicneza, Veneto, Italy. Ferrio studied at the conservatories of Vicenza and Venice. He started working at the end of the 1950s, and was active as a composer of film scores, scoring about 120 soundtracks especially for Euro-westerns and Italian sex comedies. One of his scores " Un dollar bucato", the main theme of the soundtrack of Giorgio Ferroni's “Blood for a Silver Dollar” (1965), was later included in the sound-track of Quentin Tarantino's “Inglourious Basterds” (2009). Ferrio composed scores for almost 30 Euro-westerns. Some his best remembered were “Fort Yuma Gold” (1966), “Death Sentence” and “Wanted” (both 1967).
 
He was also well known for his work in pop music, particularly for his collaboration with Mina, for whom he composed, among others, the hit song "Parole parole", and wrote arrangements and orchestrations for numerous of her songs and albums. The last collaboration with Mina was for her 2012 album 12 (American Song Book), for which Ferrio traditionally provided the string arrangements.
 
He was the official conductor for the Sanremo Music Festival in 1959 and 1962 and for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1965. He also took part, as conductor, on several important Italian TV-shows.
 
Ferrio died on October 21, 2013 in Rome, Italy.
 
Today we remember Gianni Ferrio on what would have been his 90th birthday.

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