*****VIDEO CELEBRATION NUMBER 400***** Andrea Angel Bocelli, OMRI, OMDSM (Italian pronunciation: [anˈdrɛːa boˈtʃɛlli]; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a football accident. Since winning the Newcomers section of the Sanremo Music Festival in 1994, Bocelli has recorded fourteen solo studio albums, of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 80 million records worldwide. Thus, he is the biggest-selling artist in the history of classical music and has caused core classical repertoire to "cross over" to the top of international pop charts and into previously uncharted territory in popular culture. In 1998, he was named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. In 1999, his nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards was the first time since Leontyne Price in 1961 that a classical artist had been nominated in the category. The Prayer, his duet with Celine Dion for the animated film The Quest for Camelot, won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. With the release of his classical album, Sacred Arias, Bocelli captured a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records, as he simultaneously held the top 3 positions on the US classical albums charts. Seven of his albums have since reached the Top 10 on the Billboard 200, and a record-setting 8 have topped the classical albums charts in the United States. LAURA PAUSIN, omri (Italian pronunciation: [pauˈziːni]; born 16 May 1974) is an Italian pop singer-songwriter. She debuted in 1993, winning the newcomer artists' section of the 43rd Sanremo Music Festival with the song "La solitudine", which became an Italian standard and an international hit, reaching the top spot on the Italian Musica e Dischi singles chart, as well as on the Dutch Top 40 and on the Flemish VRT Top 30. As of today, she has released ten studio albums, an international greatest hits album and two compilation albums released for the Hispanic and Anglophone market only, respectively. She performs most of her songs both in Italian and Spanish, but she has also recorded songs in English, French and Portuguese. During her career, she has won numerous awards including four World Music Award, three Latin Grammy Awards and a Grammy Award, becoming the first Italian female artist to win this award, receiving the prize for Best Latin Pop Album with Escucha. She has been honored as a Commander Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. In 2004, Allmusic's Jason Birchmeier considered Pausini's sales "an impressive feat for someone who'd never really broken into the lucrative English--language market". As of 2011, according to Warner Music Italy, Pausini had sold more than 45 million records worldwide, while other esteemed sales as those brought by the RAI, affirm that she has sold around 70 million records

• published: 17 May 2013
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