Download Free Andrea Bocelli * Songs

Andrea Bocelli music biography continued...

Lajatico, a rural village in Tuscany, Italy, Bocelli has been blind since the age of 12, when a soccer accident accelerated an already slow loss of eyesight from congenital glaucoma. That never deterred him, as Bocelli got a law degree, while at the same time studying voice and singing in piano bars. Bocelli's first break as a singer came in 1992 when opera great d Zucchero Fornaciari auditioned tenors to record a demo tape of "Miserere," which he had co-written with Bono of U2. Successfully passing the audition, Bocelli recorded the tune as a duet with Pavarotti. After touring with Fornaciari in 1993, Bocelli performed as a guest star in the Pavarotti International Festival held in Modena in September 1994. Besides performing with his host, this Festival also saw Bocelli singing with stars of popular music including Bryan Adams. In a 1995 pan-Europe tour, "Night Of The Proms" Bocelli performed with Bryan Ferry, Al Jarreau and others to a live audience of 500,000, with televised audiences reaching tens of millions.
Bocelli's first two albums -- Andrea Bocelli in 1994 and Bocelli in 1996 -- showcased his operatic singing and went multiplatinum in Europe with such hit Andrea Bocelli songs as "Con Te Partiro"' and "Time To Say Goodbye." Bocelli's interest soon after returned to pop music with his fourth album, Romanza, which was released in 1997. The album included the hit "Time to Say Goodbye," recorded as a duet with Sarah Brightman. Bocelli continued to focus on pop balladry with his fifth album, Sogno, released in 1999, which featured a duet with Celine Dion of the David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager-penned tune "The Prayer. It sold more than ten million copies, received a Golden Globe Award, and led to Bocelli being nominated for a Grammy as Best New Artist. Since that time, Bocelli has alternated between contemporary and classical recordings, culminating in the Best of Andre Bocelli: Vivere in 2007. To date, he has recorded six complete operas — La Bohème, Il Trovatore, Werther, Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana and Tosca — in addition to his classical and pop recordings-- and has sold 60 million albums worldwide. Along the way, Bocelli has proven, even to skeptics that his talent knows no bounds.