There is no sign of abating controversy between Tommaso Zanello, aka Piotta and the Club Tenco and now it’s the lawyers who are ‘singing’. After an exchange of accusations on social media and through press releases, the matter ended up in court following the exclusion of the artist from the list of finalists for the category ‘Best album in dialect’.
Yesterday, Piotta announced that he had instructed his lawyers to present a formal warning to the president of the Prize, requesting access to the documents and suspension of the award. His album ‘Na Notte Infame’ was initially accepted without objections, but was then excluded without warning. Piotta’s lawyers claim that the album is in Roman dialect, as confirmed by various institutions and experts, and denounce the lack of transparency in the exclusion.
Today, Club Tenco responded through its lawyer Davide Perrotta, stating that it had followed the rules of the Targhe Tenco and rejecting Piotta’s accusations. The Tenco Club maintains that it operated in accordance with the Targhe Tenco regulations and rejects Piotta’s accusations, judging its media attacks damaging to the image of the association. According to the Club, Piotta’s album does not meet the requirement of having at least half of the songs in dialect, being predominantly in Italian. The regulation, the Tenco Club reiterates, “is clear and that Piotta’s objection is unfounded and damaging to the association”.
In the meantime, numerous supporters have sided with the Roman artistincluding the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Rome III, the Lando Fiorini Cultural Association, Giovanni Vacca of the University of Rome 3 – Dams and Paolo D’Achille, president of the Accademia della Crusca, who declared: “Piotta is right, the border between Italian and Roman is thin”.
E Today the Tenco family is also taking partwhich through the words of its spokesperson, Michele Piacentini, states that it does not exclude further legal action against the Tenco Club, in addition to the existing disputes over the use of the name and works of Luigi Tenco. The family stopped collaborating with the Club in 2018 due to transparency issues and criticizes the current board of directors, deeming it unsuitable to represent the name of Luigi Tenco and accusing it of carrying out inappropriate commercial activities.
Tenco Award, the Crusca is with Piotta: “The border between Italian and Roman is labile”
In the reply of the Tenco Club, it is stated, in particular, that “the album presented by the singer ‘Piotta’, with his own self-candidacy for the Targhe, is absolutely lacking in the required requisite, since, with the exception of a single song and a few words for each song, the songs presented by ‘Piotta’ are all sung – almost entirely – in Italian, and not, instead, with a prevalent use of dialect”. The Tenco Club continues by highlighting that “the banal listening of the songs highlights the deliberate choice of the singer to express in Italian and not in Roman dialect – in this album – the prevalence of the characterizing expressions”.
Piotta: “Many votes for the Tenco Prize but they are not in the top five, why?”. The reply: “It is not in dialect”
