Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli is an Italian tenor. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the newcomer’s section of the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing “Il mare calmo della sera”.1992–1994: Sanremo and Il mare calmo della sera. In 1992, Italian rock star Zucchero held auditions for tenors to make a demo tape of his song “Miserere”, to send to Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. After hearing Bocelli on tape, Pavarotti urged Zucchero to use Bocelli instead of him. Zucchero eventually persuaded Pavarotti to record the song with Bocelli, and it became a hit throughout Europe. In Zucchero’s European concert tour in 1993, Bocelli accompanied him to sing the duet, and he was also given solo sets in the concerts, singing “Nessun dorma” from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot.Bocelli signed with the Sugar Music label in Milan after Caterina Caselli heard Bocelli sing “Miserere” and “Nessun Dorma” at a birthday party for Zucchero.In December, Bocelli entered the preliminary round of the Sanremo Music Festival in the category of Giovani, performing “Miserere”. He won the preliminary competition with the highest marks ever recorded in the newcomers section. On 28 December, he debuted in the classical world in a concert at the Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia. In February 1994, he entered the main Sanremo Festival competition with “Il mare calmo della sera”, and he won the newcomers section, again with a record score. Following his win, Bocelli released his debut album of the same name in April, and it entered the Italian Top Ten, being certified platinum within weeks.The same year, Bocelli recorded “Je vis pour elle”, the French version of “Vivo per lei”, as a duet with French singer Hélène Ségara. Released in December 1997, the song became a hit in Belgium (Wallonia) and France, where it reached No. 1 on the charts. To date, it is the best-selling single for Segara, and the second for Bocelli after “Time to Say Goodbye”. On 3 March, he appeared in Hamburg, Germany, with Sarah Brightman to receive the ECHO music award for “Best Single of the Year”.In the summer of 1997, he gave 22 open-air concerts in Germany, and an indoor concert in Oberhausen on 31 August. In September, he performed in concert at the Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa for the home video A Night in Tuscany (Italian: una notte nella Toscana) with guests Nuccia Focile, Sarah Brightman and Zucchero. The concert was also Bocelli’s first concert to air on PBS part of the In The Spotlight series. It also marked as Bocelli’s debut to the American audiences. On 14 September, in Munich, Germany, he received an ECHO Klassik Best Seller of the Year award for his album, Viaggio Italiano.Back in Italy in Bologna on 27 September, he sang at the International Eucharistic Congress. On 19 October, he sang at the TeleFood benefit concert held in the Vatican City to raise awareness about world hunger. On 25 October, he received a Bambi Award in the Klassik category in Cologne, Germany.From June to August, he toured North and South America. In September, he received his second Echo Klassik award, this time for Best Selling Classical Album with Aria: The Opera Album.On Thanksgiving Eve, Bocelli was a guest on Céline Dion’s television special These Are Special Times in which he joined Dion to sing “The Prayer” and he also sang “Ave Maria” solo. The duet was included on Dion’s album These Are Special Times (1998) and was re-issued with the DVD of the TV special in 2007. The song also appeared on the Quest for Camelot soundtrack in 1998 and on Bocelli’s album, Sogno, the following year.In the New Year, he performed two concerts at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. At the 56th Golden Globe Awards held on 24 January, “The Prayer” won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song from the film Quest for Camelot.At the invitation of Steven Spielberg, Bocelli sang in Los Angeles on 15 May before Bill Clinton at an event on behalf of the Democratic Party. At the end of May, he toured Portugal and Spain and sang with Portuguese Fado singer Dulce Pontes.