Tenco Prize, the 2025 edition of the event begins

From today, Wednesday 22 October, until Saturday 25 October to Sanremo (Imperia) the review of Songwriting Tenco Award 2025. The three evenings at the Ariston Theater will be held tomorrow (Thursday 23)Friday 24 and Saturday October 25th. The event dedicated to the most prestigious and renowned songwriting in our country, a unique event in Europe and the world and an opportunity for artists and operators in the music sector to meet and discuss, has been held in the western Ligurian city since 1974.

As usual, the show opened this morning at the Ariston Theater with the Masterclass for high school students “Lucio Dalla“, which saw the participation of Daniele Caracchi (CEO Pressing for the Lucio Dalla Foundation) and Bruno Sconocchia (historic manager of Lucio Dalla and President of AssoConcerti), together with the artists Pierdavide Carone and Ricky Portera. The meeting was moderated by Marika Amoretti and Paolo Talanca, in front of an audience made up of a thousand middle school and high school students from the provinces of Imperia, Savona and Genoa (you can review the masterclass on the Club Tenco Facebook page at the link https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AMTgu6Pbw/?mibextid=wwXIfr).

Tomorrow at 12.00 at the Tenco Club Headquarters (Ex Station) the press conference with the artists who will be protagonists on the stage of the Ariston Theater starting from 9.00 pm. Immediately before the press conference with the artists, a plaque dedicated to Amilcare Rambaldi, founder of the Tenco Prize and pioneer of Italian songwriting, who passed away on 4 November thirty years ago, will be unveiled on the facade of the Club Tenco headquarters.

At 3.00 pm, again at the Club Tenco headquarters (former station)the presentation of the book will be held “The Magic Box of Sanremo” by Walter Vacchino and Luca Ammirati. It follows, at 3.30pm, “National meeting of reviews and awards of contemporary author’s music”. Moderated by Andrea Scanzi. At 3.00 pm, at the Cinema Ritz/Teatro Ariston the screening of the documentary “At Fidai Film” by Kamal Aljsafari. At 5.00 pm at the Civic Museum (Piazza Nota) the inauguration of the exhibition will be held “Wandrè and the sculpture of sound”. At 6.00 pm at the former Santa Brigida churchin the Pigna district, the concert “Tango for Staino” by Alessio Lega (vocals and guitar), Guido Baldoni (accordion) and Michele Staino (double bass). Presents Steven Forti.

The first of three evenings at Ariston Theatre of the Songwriting Review will begin at 9.00 pm and will be presented by Lorenzo Luporini and Antonio Silva. For the occasion, the scenography of the new edition, created by Zhang Hongmei and Marco Nereo Rotelli, will be revealed.

In keeping with the theme of Tenco 2025, dedicated to Memorythe scenography created by Vincenzo Sanfo was entrusted to two artists linked to Club Tenco: the Chinese Zhang Hongmei, already author of the 2010 scenography, and Marco Nereo Rotelli, protagonist of memorable productions in the past. With their works, the Tenco pays homage to three unforgettable figures – Luigi Tenco, Amilcare Rambaldi and Sergio Staino – whose portraits, created by Zhang and enriched by Rotelli’s poetic writings, will be the backdrop to the Ariston stage. The images, interspersed with urban views of the Chinese artist, combine the intense black and white of the faces with fragments of colored, torn and worn fabrics, a symbol of the restless and complex time that echoes in Tenco’s songs, in Rambaldi’s words and in Staino’s work. Rotelli’s poetic phrases amplify the meaning of the portraits, evoking in just a few words the life and message of the three protagonists, whose memory continues to inspire the present. With this project, Tenco celebrates its first fifty years by looking to the future, in the name of remembrance and gratitude towards those who lit its path.

Protagonists of the evening Goran Bregović (Premio Tenco 2025), Lucio Corsi (Targa Tenco 2025), Ginevra Di Marco (Targa Tenco 2025), Lamante, Alessio Lega, Emma Nolde, Stefano Tessadri.

Title of this edition it will be “With memory”a theme that will be explored throughout the exhibition with the aim of investigating some salient facts in the history of the twentieth century that have had an impact on music. This common thread it also represented one of the criteria for the assignment of the Tenco Career Awards by the Tenco Club Board. Sergio Secondiano Sacchi, Artistic Director, says:

The song is often the fruit of personal or collective memory, it is an elaboration of lived experiences or the narration of handed down facts. In a historical period in which the exercise of memory is increasingly lacking and deficient, where history and experience are casually overlooked, set aside (or rewritten to one’s liking), even musical memory seems not to be in great health. We are led to only refer to what happened the day before yesterday, ignoring (and consequently not knowing) the firmest roots of our history.

The 2025 Tenco Awards assigned by the Tenco Club Board to the careers of those who have made a significant contribution to world songwriting they will be delivered not only to Goran Bregovic, but also to Baustelle, Ricky Gianco, Daniele Silvestri and Tosca.

Also in this edition, the Tenco Club Board will award as usual the Tenco Prize to the Cultural Operator, which will be given to Tito Schipa Jr. and the Yorum Prize, in memory of Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian poet and activist who died in 2023, together with his brother, his sister and his three children in an Israeli air attack in northern Gaza. The Siae Award will go to Mimmo Locasciulli, for the fifty years of his membership in the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers, with the deposit of the piece “Evening Song”.

In addition to the prizes specified above, on the Ariston stage during the first two evenings, 23 and 24 October, the Tenco 2025 plaques, whose winning works were announced last July. The award has been assigned since 1984 to “The best albums of the year” of songwriting published during the year (i.e. made available in any way to the public from 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025).

Below are the awarded works:
Best album ever – I wanted to be tough by Lucio Corsi;
Best album in dialect – Furesta of LA NIÑA
Best First Album – I like by Anna Castiglia;
Best Performer Album – Kaleidoscope by Ginevra Di Marco;
Best Single Song – I wanted to be tough by Lucio Corsi
Best project album – Pagani for Pagani produced by Caroline Pagani

The works of the artists nominated for the Plaques are voted for by one jury vast and competent fored by experts, journalists and professionals chosen by Club Tenco That expresses his votes in the ways and times that are communicated to the jurors by the Association. The Club Tenco Board of Directors is not part of this jury. The information relating to the Tenco Plates and the regulations are online on the Club Tenco website (Regulations: https://www.clubtenco.it/regolamento-targhe/)

Presenting the evenings on the stage of the Ariston Theater: on 23 October Lorenzo Luporini and Antonio Silva, on 24 October Silvia Boschero and Antonio Silva and, finally, on 25 October Andrea Scanzi and Antonio Silva.

Pre-sales for season tickets and tickets for individual evenings are online on clubtenco.it and aristonsanremo.com or at the Ariston Theater box office (every day from 5pm to 9pm, info. 0184 50.60.60).

The festival includes in its program, in addition to the three evenings, events, screenings, presentations, meetings and afternoon shows starting from October 22nd throughout the city, symbol of Italian music, from the headquarters of the Club Tenco in the former freight yard of the old railway station to the Casino Theater, from the former Santa Brigida church in the Pigna district to the Ritz Cinema.