A dual citizen of Italy and the United States Of America, fluent in English and Italian.
My interest in music started during my early childhood, listening and learning to appreciate music in every form and style. A self taught guitar and electric bass player with an extraordinary musical ear, I soon found that the technical aspect of music reproduction was what would have led me to the present and successful career, first by mixing for local bands in clubs, followed by 9 years in one of Southern Italy's leading recording studios. After a long time sitting behind a studio mixer, I was missing some excitement , so I naturally went back to my initial interest; live sound mixing.
A graduate at Forrest Sherman High School in Naples Italy in 1975, my first job was with my father's editorial distribution company, mainly addressed to the US Military bases in Italy and part of the Mediterranean.
I happened to jump into the consumer audio world, hired by Germany based H.E.A.T. (Harman Europe Audio Team), as sales representative for 5 leading brands in the Hi-Fi market, at the NATO audio retail point in Naples Italy.
While operating as sales representative, I was also involved in mixing club bands and after two years of selling Hi-Fi, in 1979 I was offered a position as FOH Engineer for Italian pop star Pino Daniele, followed by Edoardo Bennato as monitor engineer in 1980, two of Italy's leading and top selling artists to this day. The unfortunate and recent passing of Pino Daniele broke my heart. This "new" professional activity brought me to refine my skills and to learn more about what I was walking into, so I decided to follow a course at The Recording Workshop in Ohio, USA, graduating with a final rating of 99.9% and reaching the "Top Of The Crop" (3 out of 84 students) of the school's 1980 winter session.
Back in Naples Italy, I was soon hired as resident Recording/Mixing Engineer at Executive Studios, operating there between 1982 and 1991. During these years, I recorded and mixed productions for some of the biggest names in the Italian music business, hitting the top 10 positions on the Italian charts. Strangely enough, some of these recording artists would soon become my future "live" artists.
I am well known and respected among the many Italian audio rental companies, production agencies and artists that I have had the opportunity and honor of mixing live. One of my most important and long term collaborations has been with Lombardi Service in Termoli, Italy, presently one of the most requested sound companies and definitely the owner of the largest stock of Adamson Audio systems in Southern Europe today. The company's choice to acquire the Canadian brand came after my suggestion to make a difference between Lombardi Service and the rest of its major competitors, offering the superb audio quality and technical characteristics of this brand, which I was able to appreciate during the following 5 years of touring with artist Gigi D'Alessio, as well as the large number of other Italian productions and festivals. To this day, the company name hs changed to Rooster (https://www.roostersrl.com), and it is one of the busiest on the market.
During the summer of 2004, I was fortunate to meet extraordinaire producer / artist, Nile Rodgers, with whom I've cooperated until the end of 2018 as FOH sound engineer and Production Manager. Fourteen years have passed since then, with hundreds of shows and thousands of miles travelled around the world, bringing CHIC's dance music to millions of happy fans, including festivals such as Glastonbury, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Isle Of Wight and others. During these years, I've also translated Nile Rodger's website blog, in Italian: http://www.nilerodgers.com/blogs/pianeta-c-in-italiano.
Besides various important international festivals, I've been responsible for managing sound and crew for other major national and international productions, curating technical management for the "Freak Out Montreux" event, during Montreux Jazz 2012, covering over ten hours of live music and DJ performances in the Stravinsky Hall.
I have lived through the crossover between analog and digital audio and I was one of the first to pioneer on pro audio digital mixing systems in Italy. My preference today, for digital mixers as aopposed to analog mixers, is based mainly on setup time reduction as well as the internal processing capabilities and smaller footprint, although I still believe that nothing will ever be equal the creativity and quality obtainable with high-range professional analog mixers. However, regardless of digital or analog, the tools for my trade are only the medium with which I am able to express my musical sensibility at its best.
I've lived most of my personal and professional life in Naples Italy, but in 2008 I moved to Tuscany, minutes away from beautiful Firenze. Let's see what comes next!