Italy: Sanremo 2015 candidates go public.

RAI, the Italian national broadcaster has announced the names of the 20 acts that will compete at the forthcoming 2015 Sanremo Song Festival Campioni category.According to the broadcasters announcements in the past the winner of the Festival will be the next representative of Italy in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in the Vienna.
The 20 candidates will present their entries on Friday 13 February and only 16 will make it to Saturday’s grand final. The result will be determined by a mixed televoting and expert jury deliberation.
This year the Campioni candidates will only compete with 1 song instead of 2 song as has been the case in the previous years. The list of the competing act has as following:
- Annalisa – Una finestra tra le stelle
- Malika Ayane – Adesso e qui
- Marco Masini – Che giorno è
- Chiara – Straordinario
- Gianluca Grignani – Sogni infranti
- Nek – Fatti avanti amore
- Nina Zilli – Sola
- Dear Jack – Il mondo esplode
- Alex Britti – Un attimo importante
- Biggio e Mandelli – Vita d’Inferno
- Moreno – Oggi ti parlo così
- Bianca Atzei – Il solo al mondo
- Raf – Come una favola
- Lara Fabian – Voce
- Grazia dI Michele e Mauro Coruzzi / Platinette – Io sono una finestra
- Il Volo – Grande amore
- Anna Tatangelo – Libera
- Nesli – Buona fortuna amore
- Irene Grandi – Un vento senza nome
- Lorenzo Fragola – Siamo uguali
The 2015 Sanremo Song Festival will run from 10- 14 February with the grand final scheduled on Saturday 14 February at Teatro Ariston in Sanremo. The exact scheduled dates of the shows that will be aired on live on Rai 1, Rai HD, Rai Radio 1 and Rai Radio 2 and have as TV host, Carlo Conti are:
10/02 – Sanremo Notte 1
11/02 – Sanremo Notte 2
12/02 – Sanremo Notte 3
13/02 – Sanremo Notte 4 (Semifinal of Campioni Category with 20 acts)
14/02 – Sanremo Notte 5 ( Grand final of Sanremo 2015 with 16 acts)
Italy debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 and was one of the founder members of the contest. The country has won the event 2 times in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti and 1990 with Toto Cotugno. Italy withdrew from the event in 1998 and returned back in 2011.Raphael Gualazzi (2011), Nina Zilli (2012) and Marco Mengoni (2013) were Italy’s representatives after her come back to the contest and were all selected through the Sanremo Festival. A break to this way of selection was this year’s Emma Marrone’s internal selection by RAI. Emma represented Italy in Copenhagen with her song La mia citta managing to come 21st in the Grand Final.