Petra Magoni

Both a classically trained and a pop singer, Petra Magoni (Pisa, Jul 28 1972) studied at the Livorno Conservatorio and the Milan's Istituto Pontificio di Musica Sacra. Her first important experiences in the rock field were with the band Senza Freni, with which she took part to the 1995 edition of the Arezzo Wave festival. In 1996 and 1997 she took part to the Sanremo Music Festival with the songs "E ci sei" and "Voglio un Dio", and in the same years she released her first two albums, Petra Magoni and Mulini a vento. In 1997 she took part to a theatrical tour with comedy actor Giorgio Panariello, guesting also in his movie Bagnomaria and its soundtrack.. Then, with the pseudonym of Artepal, she recorded some dance tracks (one of them, "Don't Give Up", was used as the soundtrack of a Sasch TV commercial), collaborating in the meantime with jazz musicians such as her future husband Stefano Bollani and Ares Tavolazzi. In 2000, under the monicker of Sweet Anima, she released an album of the same name including songs from Lucio Battisti's English repertoire. After some other theatrical experience, in 2003 she starts a successful collaboration with Avion Travel's double-bass player Ferruccio Spinetti. Musica nuda, the first album of the duo -- although they consider themselves as a "band" -- was released in 2003 to a huge critical acclaim. Composed of jazz-tinged renditions of classics of the Italian and international pop tradition (such as The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" or Fred Buscalgione's "Guarda che luna") rearranged for double-bass and voice only, the record ended up selling more than 15,000 copies in Italy and about as many in the rest of continental Europe. Its follow-up, the double CD Musica nuda 2 (2006), composed of more cover...