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Italy in 2022 made several landmark strides in the international entertainment arena: an Italian play, Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy,” garnered five Tony Awards, a prize the country had never conquered; Roman rock band Måneskin scored a Grammy nomination; and even as domestic box office plunged this year, Italian film exports mushroomed.  M...

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Dino Danelli had an amazing creative career. He was born in Jersey City to an Italian American family and by the time he was 17 he had played drums for jazz legend Lionel Hampton then took the train south and ended up playing soul, blues and R & B in New Orleans. He found a band that he liked, convinced them to come back to Jersey and played around...

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A recently renamed arena deserves a big name to call attention to it, right?  On Dec. 11, Total Mortgage Arena (formerly Webster Bank Arena) in Bridgeport got just that as tenor Andrea Bocelli made his Connecticut debut as part of a U.S. tour featuring son Matteo and daughter Virginia. The family and some equally talented friends performed Italian...

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Charlie Gracie, an early rockabilly singer and guitarist who influenced a generation of 1960s rock stars has died at 86. The news of his passing on Dec. 16 was confirmed by ABKCO Records, which is home to the catalog of Cameo Records, the Philadelphia label that Gracie recorded his biggest hits for; at press time no cause of death was announced. Th...

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Love, transformation and mysticism play key roles in Moonstruck, and at the heart of this offbeat romantic comedy released 35 years ago is Loretta Castorini (Cher), navigating Italian-American family dynamics, a marriage proposal, an unexpected turn of events, and metamorphosis—while the biggest celestial body closest to Earth affects the character...

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Måneskin have revealed the tracklist of their upcoming 3rd studio album “RUSH!“, and with it they also answer the question whether Måneskin frontman Damiano David will continue to sing in Italian, the band’s mother tongue, or switch completely to English. So far, Måneskin‘s studio albums have always been bilingual, with about half the songs in Engl...

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There is a cup of hot cocoa in front of a crackling fire in the fall. There is peacefully floating on a raft on a small river in Tennessee. And there is sundown in the mountains of Colorado. As soothing, comforting and embracing as those things are, just as special is the voice of radio legend Dick Biondi. Which is ironic, since he is referred to a...

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Un ponte di musica. Itinerari dell’Opera italiana in America is a beautiful book edited by Claudio Orazi, now Superintendent of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa after having led some of Italy's most important opera houses: the Sferisterio in Macerata, the Arena in Verona, the Teatro Verdi in Trieste and the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari. The book is in...

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Music always plays an outsized role in getting us in the “Holiday Spirit,” and this year, Christmas in Italian America will have a distinctly Sicilian sound thanks to one very devoted Sicilian American songstress. In this conclusion of our two-part episode with special guest Michela Musolino, we learn more about her new Christmas album, “La Notti T...

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Friends of United Hatzalah will be holding its annual Gala in Miami, Florida this Tuesday, December 20, featuring a special performance by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. The singer and his wife Veronica will be receiving United Hatzalah's "Humanitarian Award," along with donors Margo and Yoram Cohen who will be presented with the "L'Dor V'Dor Award"...

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