Gianni Ferrio

Who was Gianni Ferrio?

Gianni Ferrio was an Italian composer, conductor and music arranger.

Born in Vicenza, Ferrio studied at conservatories of Vicenza and Venice. He started working at the end of the fifties, and was pretty active as a composer of film scores, signing about 120 sound-tracks especially for spaghetti westerns and commedie sexy all'italiana. His piece "One Silver Dollar", the main theme of the sound-track of Giorgio Ferroni's Un dollaro bucato, was later included in the sound-track of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds.

He was also well known for his work in pop music, particularly for his collaboration with Mina, for whom he composed, among others, the hit song "Parole parole", and wrote arrangements and orchestrations for numerous of her songs and albums. The last collaboration with Mina was for her 2012 album 12, for which Ferrio traditionally provided the string arrangements.

He was the official conductor for Sanremo Music Festival in 1959 and 1962 and for the Eurovision Song Contest 1965. He also took part, as conductor, in several important Italian TV-shows.

Ferrio was married to actress Alba Arnova.