Maurizio di Giovanni & Joe Barbieri

AMMORE - with Maurizio De Giovanni and Joe Barbieri

If you look at them side by side, it is immediately clear that it was fate that called the writer Maurizio de Giovanni and the composer Joe Barbieri to this fateful meeting. Both of whom have already been observers of Neapolitan Song in the past, from different (although perfectly complementary) perspectives, the two artists have decided to join their paths in "Ammore", a show of words and music (with the complicity on stage of guitarists Nico Di Battista and Oscar Montalbano) that tells the stories, the unparalleled musicality, the authors and the secret harmony of the love songs of the Great Neapolitan Tradition. Yes, love songs. Because it is love that all of us on this earth continue to thirst infinitely. And because it is precisely Love that the Neapolitan Songs know how to eternally invoke with a grace that is still unequaled.
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Joe Barbieri (Naples, 14 December 1973) is an outsider who has been able to build a personal path outside the track of industry, abroad as well as in Italy; and who has succeeded in the rare exercise of conveying the genuine appreciation of colleagues, critics and the public. The Neapolitan composer has 5 albums of original songs to his credit ("In Parole Povere" 2004, "Maison Maravilha" 2009, "Respiro" 2012, "Cosmonauta Da Appartamento" 2015 and "Origami" 2017), as well as a live CD + DVD ("Maison Maravilha Viva" 2010) recorded at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome and two tribute discs both dedicated to his tutelary deities in jazz: namely Chet Baker ("Chet Lives!" 2013) and Billie Holiday ("Dear Billie" 2019). 
In 2021 "Tratto da una storia vera" was released and in 2022 "Tratto da una notte vera" a live record. 
In 2025 "Big Bang" his latest album will be realised.

Maurizio de Giovanni was born in 1958 in Naples, where he lives and works. In 2005 he participated in a competition reserved for emerging crime writers organized by Porsche Italia Gran Caffè Gambrinus, creating a story set in Naples in the thirties entitled "The living and the dead". The latter became the basis of a novel published by Graus Editore in 2006, "The Clown's Tears", republished the following year with the title The Sense of Pain: thus began the series of investigations by Commissioner Ricciardi. 
In 2007 Fandango published "The sense of pain. The winter of Commissioner Ricciardi", the first work inspired by the four seasons, followed by "The condemnation of blood. The spring of Commissioner Ricciardi" (2008), "Il posto di ognuno. The summer of Commissioner Ricciardi" (2009) and "The day of the dead. The autumn of Commissioner Ricciardi" (2010). 
In 2011 he published with Einaudi Stile Libero "Per mano mia. Commissioner Ricciardi's Christmas"; and in 2012 he tried his hand at a noir set in contemporary Naples, publishing with Mondadori "The crocodile method" starring Inspector Lojacono. In the same year he published the novel "Vipera" with Einaudi. 
In 2013 he returned to bookstores with the novel "The Bastards of Pizzofalcone", inspired by Ed McBain's 87th District, and then with "Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone". In the same month he participated in the anthology "Regalo di Natale" published by Sellerio with the story "Un giorno di Settembre a Natale". Later "In fondo al tuo cuore" (Einaudi, 2014), the new novel by Commissioner Ricciardi, and "Frost for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone" were released. This is followed by "Glass souls. Moths for Commissioner Ricciardi" (2015) and "Serenata senza nome. Nocturne for Commissioner Ricciardi" (2016). 
In December 2016 he published "Bread for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone", and the following year a new trilogy of mystery books called "The Guardians" began. 
In 2018 he began the cycle of novels on the former secret agent Sara with "Sara at sunset" and in 2019, after two previous stories, those on the social worker Mina Settembre with "Twelve roses in September". 
Many of his novels have been translated into English, Spanish, Catalan, German and his works have been based on three television series: in 2017 "The Bastards of Pizzofalcone" and in 2021 "Mina Settembre" and "Il Commissario Ricciardi". 
Maurizio de Giovanni has also written for the theater, adapting Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and Mamet's "American Buffalo", and creating the original texts of "Independent Entrance", "Put Your Hand" and "The Great Silence". The film of the same name directed by Alessandro Gassmann was also based on the latter. 
He is currently part of the group of authors who conduct the writing workshop with the children incarcerated in the Juvenile Penal Institute of Nisida.