Music as a voice of life — Interview with Mario Rosini

How did your artistic career begin and what was for you jazz and song music?

Rosini: Hello Mariateresa thanks to you! So jazz music and song music, for me, are both on the same level and are the same; music, however, is the only beautiful thing that matters. So both have the same language, that is the language of the soul; maybe jazz, from the point of view of improvisation, is more interesting and is the humus of the world of improvisation; while singing music is perhaps more thought, in fact, of written stories (more thought not improvised).

So it's a nice difference though they are two styles I love very much

We met you as one of the great performers of the Sanremo Festival in 2004 with the success “You are my life”, who came to second place with Marco Masini and the “L’uomo Volante” (winner of that edition). From “You are my life”, how did your success change?

Rosini: Yeah, so many interesting things happened. Masini came first, but I was second on equal merit. Look I came back to what I did, so I teach, do the evenings around, because I like to put my feet on the ground and I always carry the keyboard behind my shoulders; put me in the car and play with my friends. I don't really love the wide spaces of Italian light music and pop

In Sanremo we have seen many young people coming from the talent shows. Are these talent shows a box of conformism or are they a way to help young artists become great singers? And what is the “talent” for you?

Rosini: Answering the first question I have to tell you that the talent is a double-cut weapon. A boy or a girl can enter that system there and get out of it unconscious, can not believe it anymore etc... also because it is a concentrate of things, it is the TVs and the media that are around them at that time and the expectations are so many; maybe nothing comes up a very young guy can remain very bad. Then today there are talents that come out (for example Mengoni, Emma, Alessandra Amoroso), there is something good at the bottom.

Responding to your second question, what is the “talent” for me?, talent is to do something that for others can be difficult easily, this is talent to do something easy but difficult

In the talent The Voice we witnessed the victory of Suon Cristina, with the victory of Sister Cristina, can music join a fideistic attitude and at the same time can transmit messages of hope?

Rosini: Yes, because no, why not! But I don't see Sister Cristina around, I don't know what happened to her, maybe she's still following her religious vocation. But I have been part of four records of the renewal of the Holy Spirit, so I have also been a little the conductor of this kind of ideology. I'm a believer I think music is a language of God and goes hand in hand with Sister Cristina's music

You wrote for many artists (GINO PAOLI, FIORELLA MANNOIA, Patty Pravo to other great names). When you write your songs, you compose them thinking about a particular moment of your artistic career or something that is happening in the world (violence on women, the elderly and children, fights for discrimination racism, fights for homophobia and sexual discrimination, peace in the world etc.).

Rosini: Look, I have to tell you frankly, I have not yet understood my inspiration from where it comes because sometimes I leave there is no reason to go, then there is other times maybe they have commissioned me a work I become forced to write but nothing comes to me; so it is a mystery and so I like it so. Understood, art is not explained is something imperceptible you can not say why.

There are technical mechanisms to write a song that are the structures of the song (returns and other stanzas), but then it is the true inspiration that there is

You've had a fight with great artists! In Italy and also in the rest of the world are depopulating the so-called “boy bands, duets and choral groups. What did they teach the youth world in the adult world?

Rosini: “Then when I talk about boy band I immediately think of “THE JACKSON 5” (Michael Jackson began his artistic career from the Jackson 5 group).

There are some strong examples such as the “Jackson 5”, but also the “Bee Gees” and others that don’t come to mind but are still good models that have brought the music where we know, but there are other discographic products that put them together these three guys (the Bee Gees) who are maybe cute etc., so we have to distinguish the authentic band from the built one, so if the music is made good it will only bring the record otherwise it will take some good.

What did Sanremo teach you?

Rosini: He taught me to be more professional because still there I couldn't miss, it's three minutes and 1/2, you have to be an arrow understood! I really like to study, but I always put the music in an always joyful way, but Sanremo helped me to be more professional

What were the models you inspired to become a great interpreter of Italian music?

Rosini: No doubt Stevie Wonder and Pino Daniele. I did these two names, but George Benson, too, but the two of them are important models for me.

What is the soundtrack of your artistic career?

Rosini: It is a song by George Benson called “Nature Boy” where his voice is and where there are extraordinary arrangements and where there is a beautiful piano sound. That's my input to make my artistic life

Who would you like to thank for your professional personal journey? What will your future projects be?

Rosini: “Naturally my parents because they have always supported me that I continue to insist. Now I’m working for Terzi and I’m making plans for abroad, as an arranger I’m writing a record for a very good Apulian singer Olimpia Simoni and so I’m working as a producer, but pretty soon I’ll have to close a 12 or 13 songs for a CD instead a for a new project and to pote it around.”

I conclude this interview by reporting one of the many answers given by our bare artist ” art is not explained is something imperceptible you can’t say why”. I also add that music is a picture of a thousand sound faces and it is the art par excellence that comes from inspiration from the soul.

I believe that the master Mario Rosini has managed to return to the musical panorama by giving the example to many artists who have not made the way of success, bringing, with his affectionate “friend” piano, the love for the musical panorama. And as he says, “the music always comes from the moment of inspiration”.