Gianna Nannini’s Puzzles

SERIES: Seven Albums to Tell a Century
SPEAKER: Teresa De Santis
DATE: Thursday 14 July 2022 at 6 p.m.
PLACE: Sala del Refettorio

The twentieth century was the century in which popular music changed its shape, meaning and soul, from pure entertainment it turned into art, it influenced culture, customs, language, created a market, told stories and accompanied history. From the second half of the twentieth century, the Italian song has experienced a further profound change, with a generation of songwriters who have been able to put together stories and history, tell private passions and collective feelings, give shape to dreams, visions, hopes and desires. Ernesto Assante tries to reconstruct the history of popular music of the twentieth century through seven albums: seven works of art to be told in their creation and for their impact, seven masterpieces that everyone should know and admire. Seven essential steps to understand what we have been and what we will probably become.

Born in Rome in 1955, she has been a professional journalist since 1988 and a Cavaliere al Merito of the Italian Repubblic since 2003 for recognised professional qualities. She has been at RAI since 1979, first as an anchorwoman at Radiotre and later as an expert journalist and anchorwoman at Rai Stereonotte. During the same period, she collaborated with newspapers such as Panorama, L'Europeo, La Repubblica and at the same time was editor of Manifesto, specialising first in Culture Giovanili (Youth Culture) and then in Problemi dell’informazione. In 1995, she was hired on a permanent basis at Tg3, where she was political-parliamentary editor until 1998. Promoted to Head of Service, she was called by the General Directorate to set up the first Institutional Relations Unit and take on the role of Head of Relations with Government and Parliament, as Editor-in-Chief. In 2000, she moved to Raiuno, where she became Section Chief of Information, responsible for Columns and Co-productions with Tg1. In 2002, again at Raiuno, she was appointed Deputy Director with responsibility for Economic Planning. She also retains responsibility for columns and programmes of institutional relevance. In 2009, she became Deputy Director of Teletext, which in 2014 became Rainews24. From November 2018 she is appointed Director of Rai Uno until January 2020, when she is temporarily assigned to report directly to the CEO. From June 2020, she is President of Rai Com.