A few days ago Carlo Conti presented the new rules of Sanremo Giovaniready to replace Amadeus as host and artistic director of the Sanremo Festival. The competition, as is known, allows younger artists to access the singing event, this time in the New Proposals category, reintroduced for the 2025 edition. One of the main novelties? The age limit to access it, which lowers the maximum ceiling from 30 to 26 years. A novelty that has sparked quite a few controversies from those who work in the music industry, above all Luca Jurman, singing coach and former professor of Amici who harshly criticized Conti and his decision.
Luca Jurman’s words against Carlo Conti
“Dear Carlo Conti, I understand everything, the pressure of entering such a tough and heavy machine as that of Sanremo and I have always respected you having worked with you,” Jurman began in the video shared on his Instagram profile. The former Prof. of Amiciwho often clashed with the production of Maria De Filippi’s talent show, then continued by getting straight to the point: to lower the age limit for admission to Sanremo Giovani unfairly harms artists and takes away their chance to access the New Proposals of Sanremo 2025.
“You have always been on the side of music and artists, according to you,” he said. “And I thought you were making some sort of new regulation that would draw attention to art and culture by making necessary changes and give space and light to artists who are not only part of the world of numbers. Of course, not all the very young people make second-rate music and there are some rare diamonds. But do you realize that even Pippo Baudo had set a limit to new proposals, but of 36 years? And thanks to this, important voices, singer-songwriters of great depth, have managed to become part of the history of Italian music”.
“Now instead of putting things back in order, you make them worse?”the singing coach then thundered, insinuating that there is a sort of “game” to the advantage of those who, even if very young and with less experience, already feed on a certain visibility in terms of followers on social media and talent shows. “And all those who in the meantime have spent money, time, life making sacrifices to study and prepare? Everyone cut off – Jurman asked himself, who concluded by aiming directly at Conti -? I expected, if anything, that someone like you would create, I don’t know, a category of young people in streaming, separating them from the new proposals of unknowns. And the really big names, facts and careers”.
Controversy over new Sanremo Giovani rules rages
Jurman’s words found thesupport from many among simple listeners but also artists who, given the new regulation, find themselves excluded a priori from any possibility of accessing the Sanremo Festival through the competition dedicated to new talents. Among these, the voice of Giovanni Segreti Bruno emerged, a singer-songwriter of Calabrian origin who boasts collaborations with numerous artists, for whom he has written successful songs. One of the last Massimiliano Varrese, an actor fresh from GF Vip and among the most criticized contestants of the last edition of the reality show, released on all platforms with the song Fai Clap Clap.
“Yesterday I woke up and discovered that I was excluded from the Sanremo Giovani rules because someone decided that at 27 you are old – he began in his video -. I wonder why a 15-16 year old boy who took his first singing lesson three months ago, forced by his mom and dad, maybe stops in two years, has the right by regulation to present a song (…), to participate and I, who live on music from eight in the morning until two in the morning, no? I who have been making music since I was ten years old”.
The artist continued by asking: “Are we sure that the requirements that Italian music needs are these two: being a teen and presenting a song that lasts as long as a WhatsApp audio? (…) Does Italian music need this?“. According to Segreti Bruno, requirements such as the value of a composition, a literary text, a voice, the originality of the artist and his project should be judged. “Art has nothing to do with age, but only with talent, passion and songs,” he concluded. From Carlo Conti, at least for the moment, no reply has arrived.
