BIOGRAPHY
Paolo Conte was born in Asti. From an early age he cultivated what remain to this day his great passions: American jazz and the visual arts.
He began writing songs at a young age, drawing inspiration from everyday life, cinema, and literature, sources that would become central elements of his artistic imagination.
In the mid-1960s, numerous songs written by him began climbing the charts, including “La coppia più bella del mondo”, “Azzurro” (performed by Adriano Celentano), and “Insieme a te non ci sto più” (performed by Caterina Caselli), along with many other songs that quickly became classics of Italian music.
Between 1974 and 2014 he released a series of albums that established him as one of the most important Italian singer-songwriters and as an ambassador of Italian music worldwide. These include “Paolo Conte”, “Paris Milonga”, “Appunti di viaggio”, “Concerti”, “Aguaplano”, “Paolo Conte Live”, “Parole d’amore scritte a macchina”, “Novecento”, “Tournée”, “Una faccia in prestito”, “Tournée 2”, “Reveries”, “Elegia”, “Paolo Conte Live Arena di Verona”, “Psiche”, “Nelson”, “Gong-Oh”, and “Snob”.
In 2000 he created “Razmataz”, a multimedia work connected to the musical of the same name set in 1920s Paris. The project brings together music, theatre, and visual arts and represents one of the most original experiments of his artistic production.
In 2016 he released “Amazing Game”, his first entirely instrumental album. The following year saw the release of “Zazzarazàz – Uno spettacolo d’arte varia”, a project celebrating more than forty years of his career, bringing together some of his most famous works alongside reinterpretations by artists such as Roberto Benigni, Francesco De Gregori, and Lucio Dalla.
In 2018 he celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of “Azzurro” with a completely sold-out tour and the release of the double album “Live in Caracalla”, recorded at the Terme di Caracalla.
In 2021 he released “Live at Venaria Reale”, a live album recorded in the prestigious setting of the Reggia di Venaria Reale.
On 19 February 2023 the Maestro performed on the stage of the Teatro alla Scala. The concert sold out just hours after tickets went on sale, marking a historic moment for the theatre, which hosted for the first time an icon of Italian singer-songwriting performing his own repertoire. In November 2023 the album “Paolo Conte alla Scala – Il Maestro è nell’anima” was released, documenting the event.
Alongside music, Paolo Conte has always cultivated a passion for drawing and painting. On 17 October 2023 his solo exhibition “Nostalgia di un golf, un dolcissimo golf di lana blu” opened at the Galleria degli Uffizi, presenting 69 of his drawings in the gallery’s rooms dedicated to graphic art.
In 2025 the major exhibition “Paolo Conte. Original” opened in Asti at Palazzo Mazzetti, a large-scale show devoted to his creative universe across music, drawing, and visual arts. The exhibition gathers numerous works, including sketches, drawings, and materials related to his artistic production, and remains open to the public until 6 April 2026.
Alongside his musical and artistic activity, in recent years some of his graphic works have also been reproduced in limited series of serigraphs and art prints based on his original drawings. These fine-art prints offer another way to explore and disseminate his visual imagination, characterized by essential lines, dreamlike atmospheres, and characters that echo the poetic world of his songs.
An artist with a distinctive and unmistakable style, Paolo Conte remains a central figure in both Italian and international music, capable of combining singer-songwriting, jazz, and visual arts within a unique creative universe.