Sanremo to pay homage to Mango, Pino Daniele

FLORENCE, ITALY – This year’s edition of the Sanremo song contest and entertainment extravaganza is to pay homage to the late Italian singer-songwriters Mango and Pino Daniele, festival florentine presenter Carlo Conti said.

“We are considering a homage to Pino Daniele and Mango on the first night,” Conti said. “But on the other nights we would like to pay homage to all the greats of Italian music,” he added. The popular festival opens on February 10 and runs for five nights in the Ligurian seaside town.

Giuseppe Pino Mango, who reached the peak of his fame in Italy in the 1980s with a unique blend of pop, folk, and world music, died of a heart attack on stage during a benefit concert in Policoro in the southern Basilicata region in early December at age 60.

Neapolitan singer Pino Daniele also died from heart failure after being taken ill on the evening of January 4 while at his vacation home in the countryside near Orbetello in the Maremma region of Tuscany. He had been suffering from chronic heart disease, pathologists said. Rome prosecutors are probing the death amid claims that Daniele might have been saved if he had received treatment earlier. Investigators are looking into whether it was the 59-year-old’s decision to go to Rome for treatment despite an ambulance having been called to his Tuscan farmhouse that proved fatal.

Conti, a well-known television personality in Italy, said singers Emma Marrone and Arisa along with actress and model Rocio Munoz Morales would join him for the presentation of the 65th edition of the Sanremo music festival, which will be broadcast live from the Ariston theatre in Sanremo by state broadcaster RAI.