Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli (born 22 September 1958) is a renowned Italian singer. He is both an operatic tenor and a classical crossover singer. To date, he has recorded six complete operas — La Bohème, Il Trovatore, Werther, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana and Tosca — in addition to various classical and pop albums. He has sold 55 million albums worldwide.

Early career
Bocelli has been blind since the age of 12 as a result of a football accident and an eye condition known as glaucoma.

In 1992, the Italian rock star Zucchero first auditioned Bocelli while scouting for tenors to duet with him in the song "Miserere"; after hearing this recording, tenor Luciano Pavarotti urged Zucchero to use Bocelli instead of himself and said, "he is better than me, I can't do any better." The song was later recorded with Pavarotti, but Bocelli accompanied Zucchero on his European concert tour.

In 1994, Bocelli performed the winning entry "Il mare calmo della sera" at the Sanremo Festival, which led to his first gold record. That year, he also debuted as Macduff in Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth, sang at Pavarotti's benefit concert in Modena, and performed for Pope John Paul II at Christmas.

In 1995, Bocelli's song "Con te partirò" placed fourth at the Sanremo Festival. It was included in his 1995 album Bocelli

International presence
In 1995, Andrea Bocelli had a performance during "Night of the Proms" - a famous yearly concert consisting of a combination of pop music and popular classical music (often combined) with various well-known and less known musicians in Antwerp, Belgium. As a consequence of this, "Con te partirò" became a huge hit in Belgium and stayed many weeks number one in the Belgian charts.

In 1996, he sang with the English soprano Sarah Brightman a duet version of "Con te partirò", entitled "Time to Say Goodbye", which broke sales records and stayed in the German top ten for nearly six months. He also appeared in Sesame Street singing a duet with Elmo. In subsequent years Bocelli performed in Paris, Bologna, Torre del Lago and Vatican City. He also topped the Spanish singles chart in 1996 with a duet with Marta Sanchez, Vivo Por Ella. He released further albums until entering the American market in 1998 with a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. and a White House reception. Both that year and in 1999, Bocelli embarked on tours to North and South America and duets with Céline Dion, and performed the first Internet live opera broadcast in its entirety from the Detroit Opera House, with Denyce Graves.

In 2002, Bocelli repeated his America tour, winning two World Music Awards. Since then, he has continued his career with concert appearances throughout the world, including singing during the NBA's 2006 All-Star Weekend in Houston. He sang "Because We Believe" from his 2006 album Amore, during the Closing Ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
In 2006, Bocelli worked with the six finalists of American Idol to help them sing the week's themed songs, "classic love songs".
On July 1, 2007, Bocelli performed "Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Phantom of the Opera, during the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium in London,England.
Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's duet version of "Con Te Partirò" was used in the 2007 movie Blades of Glory starring Will Ferrell, as an ice skating song.
Akiyama Yoshihiro, K-1 mixed martial arts fighter uses "Con Te Partirò" as his ring entrance music.
On September 8, 2007, he sang Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus" at the funeral of Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Italy.

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