The news of the passing of Maestro Remigio Passarino, who passed away today at the age of 87 at the Nizza Monferrato hospice, is causing mourning in the city.
A musician, as a young man he had been part of some groups in Asti, worked on his own with the piano bar and stayed for a long time in Brazil, where he learned to love Latin American and Caribbean music. He had also been a composer in two large music publishing houses in Milan, Saar and Curci. Then he continued in the field of music as an arranger and publisher, as well as opening a recording studio, the “Canguro DNa studio”.
The memory of Piero Montanaro
The memory of the Asti singer-songwriter Piero Montanaro is moving. “We had known each other for about 60 years,” he says. “Initially I was his singing student and, later, a close collaborator as co-author of many songs of which he was the composer. We often met at evenings and events, such as the Castagnolese Song Festival, of which he was the artistic director (as well as director of the orchestra) at the beginning of the 70s. With the Juke Box, his little musical group, we then met found at the Canta Asti and at the Centenary Festival of the Elastic Ball in Alba. Meanwhile, Remigio wrote songs for many performers, collaborating in particular with Livio Musso on the lyrics. The song “Via Mazzini 41” by him, on the B side of the 45 rpm single “Due delfini bianchi”, sung by Piero Cotto, who participated in Rai’s “Un disco per l’estate”. In those years, his activity as arranger and transcriber of many songs that large Milanese publishers commissioned from him for orchestras throughout the country was also very important. He has always been a musical collaborator as well as editor of the songs of Luigi Gallia’s orchestra and other popular Italian and Piedmontese orchestras”.
The collaboration between Passarino and Montanaro intensified in the 1980s. “In that period, significant songs for our careers were born – recalls Montanaro – many of which were sung by ‘I tre castelli’”. Worth mentioning, specifically, is “Viva j’amis”, written for them, whose Italian version, entitled “Amici mie”, became his most popular song in Italy and abroad.
“In recent years, in addition to following the activities of his publishing house and continuing to write songs – he concludes – he has signed and published two interesting manuals: “Singing in pop music” and “Write, play and sing your songs”. With the passing of Maestro Remigio Passarino, therefore, popular song loses one of its most fruitful and important composers.
