Celebrity Biographies
Franco Battiato
The imaginative and unclassifiable Italian musician Franco Battiato passed away on May 18, 2021, at the age of 76, in his villa in Milo (Sicily). “A Maestro left us. One of the greatest Italian composers. Unique, inimitable, always looking for new artistic expressions. He leaves a perennial legacy,” recalled the Italian Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, after hearing the news. Apart from his important musical career, he had time to venture into the cinema.
Born on March 23, 1945 in Riposto (Catania), Franco Battiato moved to Rome in 1965, and two years later to Milan, where his musical career took off. In the 70s and 80s he recorded almost one album a year, with hits like “Centro di gravità permanente”, and also composed songs for other performers.
As for the Seventh Art, Franco Battiato ‘s songs have sounded in various titles, and he has served as composer of the soundtrack for titles such as Sara May , by Marianna Sciveres, or Cellini, a violent life , directed by Giacomo Battiato .
He made his debut as a film director and screenwriter with Perduto Amor , from 2003, which follows the adventures of Ettore, a Sicilian boy, in the 50s. The emblematic musician had the bizarre idea of giving the role of Ludwig van Beethoven to the versatile Chilean artist Alejandro Jodorowsky , in Musikanten , a surreal intellectual exercise where a woman glimpses that she was a 19th century prince who received piano lessons from the composer of the “Novel Symphony”.
Franco Battiato also has another fiction feature film in his filmography, Niente è come sow , and the documentary Auguri Don Gesualdo .