Nicola Piovani

Italian film composer Nicola Piovani achieved global prominence through his Academy Award-winning score for the 1998 film La Vita è Bella, known in North America as Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful. He entered the world on May 26, 1946, in Rome, earned a piano degree from Milan's Verdi Conservatory, and pursued further studies in orchestration with Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis prior to his first screen project, the 1969 release N.P. Il Segreto. Widespread attention arrived with his contributions to Marco Bellocchio's 1970 picture Nel Nome del Padre, which also launched a sustained partnership that encompassed Salto Nel Vuoto and Matti da Slegare. Directors who repeatedly sought his services included the Taviani brothers on La Notte di San Lorenzo, Mario Monicelli on Speriamo Che Sia Femmina, Nanni Moretti on Caro Diario, and Federico Fellini, whose joint efforts produced the international successes Intervista and Ginger e Fred. Persistent speculation nevertheless suggested that Piovani functioned merely as a pseudonym for Ennio Morricone, a notion the composer has sometimes amplified in public settings. Those rumors receded after La Vita è Bella secured his first Oscar in 1998, even though he was denied a Grammy Award in favor of Randy Newman. In 2001 he received the Ciak d'Oro for his score to Moretti's La Stanza del Figlio.