Piero Piccioni

Piero Piccioni was an Italian film score composer. A pianist, organist, conductor, and composer, he was also the prolific author of more than 300 film soundtracks. He played for the first time on radio in 1938 with his "013" Big Band, to return on air only after the Allied liberation of Italy in 1944. "013" was the first Italian jazz band to be broadcast in Italy after the fall of Fascism. Early life Piero Piccioni was born in Turin, Piedmont. His mother's maiden name was Marengo, hence his pseudonym Piero Morgan, which he adopted until 1957. When he was growing up, his father Attilio Piccioni (a prominent member of the Italian Christian Democratic Party with the post-war Italian government), would frequently take him to hear concerts at the EIAR Radio Studios in Florence. Having listened to jazz throughout his childhood (he loved the music of Art Tatum and Charlie Parker) and attending studies at the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, Piero Piccioni became a musician. Career Piccioni made his radio debut at 17 with his 013 Big Band in 1938, but only returned on air after the liberation of Italy in 1944. His 013 was the first Italian jazz band to be broadcast in Italy after the fall of Fascism. He began writing songs of his own and was soon able to get some of his works published by Carisch editions. Piero Piccioni came into contact with the movie world in Rome during the fifties, when he was a practicing lawyer securing movie rights for Italian producers such as Titanus and De Laurentiis. During that time, Michelangelo Antonioni had called Piccioni to score a documentary film directed by Luigi Polidoro, one of his apprentices. Piccioni's first score for a feature film was Gianni Franciolini's Il mondo le condanna (1952). He consequently changed his lawyer's "toga" for a conductor's baton.