Earlier this week, Rai released the set of rules for the Sanremo Giovani 2023 competition. Here’s what we know so far:
Only 12 songs, out of all those that are going to be submitted between the 15th of June and the 15th of October, will be chosen by the Artistic Director and a Musical Committee, to be performed during the live night in Sanremo next December.
8 of the artists will be chosen amid the autonomous submissions and 4 from the contest Area Sanremo.
During the night, the 12 songs will receive votes from Amadeus himself and a jury, and in the end 3 of the young artists (who must be between 16 and 29 years old to compete) will win a spot in the Sanremo festival competition next February. On that occasion, they’ll have to submit a different original song to try and win the big thing.
Do you think it's impossible?
Then think again: in 2018, Mahmood won the Sanremo Giovani competition with the song “Gioventù Bruciata” and went on to unexpectedly win Sanremo 2019 with “Soldi”, ending up 2nd at Eurovision the following May, only 26 points short from victory.
“I’m very happy, Sanremo Giovani rules are always the first step in the preparation of the next Sanremo festival. I can’t wait to listen to all the submitted songs, because we’ve noticed that every year the quality increases.” Amadeus commented.
In a separate interview he has also officially stated that Sanremo 2024 will be his last one as Artistic Director, at least for the near future.
This decision doesn’t come as a surprise, since the hosts and artistic directors of the festival usually rotate every year or so, and Amadeus has hosted for 5 years in a row now, matching the record of two big names of Italian Television.
Before him, Pippo Baudo hosted five festivals between 1992 and 1996, in addition to 7 others in his career, while the late Mike Bongiorno, hosted the same amount in a row between 1963 and 1967, plus 6 more until his last one in 1997.
He was such an historical public figure, that, in 2013, the city of Sanremo placed a statue of him just a couple of streets away from the iconic Ariston theatre.
In the last five years, Sanremo festival has gained renewed popularity among the younger segment of the Italian public thanks to the artistic choices of Amadeus, who selected, among other many successful acts, “Zitti e buoni“, the winning song of Eurovision 2021 by Maneskin.
Which Italian artist would you like to see competing in Sanremo, and possibly in Eurovision? Let us know in the comments!
