Italy: RAI confirms the hosts of the 69th Sanremo Festival

The Italian national broadcaster has confirmed the hosts of the 69th edition of Sanremo festival. RAI revealed that Claudio Bisio, Virginia Raffaele and Claudio Baglioni will be the host of the upcoming Sanremo Festival 2019.

Ο Claudio Bisio and Virginia are two famous Italian actors ,comedians and T.V hosts, while Claudio Baglioni is a famous figure of the Italian pop-rock scene and will be for a 2nd concecutive year the host and artistic director of the festival.

Claudio Bisio stated:

Neither Virginia nor I have anything to prove. The big news is that will be working together. Our aim is to work as a group on stage along Baglioni, if he allows it.

Virgina Raffaele stated:

Having never worked together and having different pasts, but similar ones, as far as I’m concerned, I will experiment again this year. We will try to enter the song contest on time and add some colour!

The stage for Sanremo 2019 has been designed by Francesca Montinaro and will be largest ever stage in the history of the competition.

The 2019 Sanremo Song Festival will be running from 05-09 February with the grand finale scheduled to be held on Saturday 9 February. The traditional Italian song festival is set to take place at the Teatro Ariston in Sanremo.

The 24 Sanremo festival candidates

The 24 acts to compete in the upcoming Sanremo festival are:

Paola Turci – L’ultimo ostacolo
Simone Cristicchi – Abbi cura di me
Zen Circus – L’amore è una dittatura
Anna Tatangelo – Le nostre anime di notte
Loredana Bertè – Cosa ti aspetti da me
Irama – La ragazza col cuore di latta
Ultimo – I tuoi particolari
Nek – Mi farò trovare pronto
Motta – Dov’è l’Italia
Il Volo – Musica che resta
Ghemon – Rose viola
Federica Carta e Shade – Senza farlo apposta
Patty Pravo e Briga – Un po’ come la vita
Negrita – I ragazzi stanno bene
Daniele Silvestri – Argento vivo
Ex Otago – Solo una canzone
Achille Lauro – Rolls Royce
Arisa – Mi sento bene
Francesco Renga – Aspetto che torni
Boomdabash – Per un milione
Enrico Nigiotti – Nonno Hollywood
Nino D’Angelo e Livio Cori – Un’altra luce
Einar (Sanremo Giovanni winner)-
Mahmood ( Sanremo Giovani winner)-

The winner of Sanremo 2019 will be eligible to represent Italy at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. If the winner declines to go to Eurovision, the decision to deliberate the 2019 Italian Eurovision representative will lie in the hands of RAI and the Sanremo organizers.

THE EUROVISION STORY SO FAR

Italy has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 44 times since making its debut at the first contest in 1956. After a 14-year absence from 1998 and on, the country returned to the contest in 2011. Italy has won the contest twice in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti and her song “Non ho l’età”. Italy’s second victory in the contest came in 1990 with Toto Cutugno and the song “Insieme: 1992”.

Italy’s come back to the contest has proved to be very successful, the country having finished in the top ten in six times of the last seven contests (2011–2018), with Raphael Gualazzi second in 2011, Nina Zilli ninth in 2012, Marco Mengoni seventh in 2013 and Il Volo third in 2015, Francesco Ghabbani 6th in Kiev.

In this year’s Eurovision Song Contest the winners of Sanremo 2018 ,Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro, represented Italy in Eurovision in Lisbon with their song “Non mi avete fatto niente”. The Italian duo achieved an honorable 5th place in the Grand final with 308 points and a remarkable 3rd placing in the public voting.