Andrea Angel Bocelli, OMRI, OMDSM (Italian pronunciation: [anˈdrɛːa boˈtʃɛlli]; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor, singer-so...
Andrea Angel Bocelli, OMRI, OMDSM (Italian pronunciation: [anˈdrɛːa boˈtʃɛlli]; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Born with poor eyesight, he became blind at the age of twelve following a football accident. nSince winning the Newcomers section of the Sanremo Music Festival in 1994, Bocelli has recorded fourteen solo studio albums, of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 80 million records worldwide. Thus, he is the biggest-selling artist in the history of classical music and has caused core classical repertoire to "cross over" to the top of international pop charts and into previously uncharted territory in popular culture. nIn 1998, he was named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. In 1999, his nomination for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards was the first time since Leontyne Price in 1961 that a classical artist had been nominated in the category. The Prayer, his duet with Celine Dion for the animated film The Quest for Camelot, won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. With the release of his classical album, Sacred Arias, Bocelli captured a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records, as he simultaneously held the top 3 positions on the US classical albums charts. Seven of his albums have since reached the Top 10 on the Billboard 200, and a record-setting 8 have topped the classical albums charts in the United States. nWith 5 million units sold worldwide, Sacred Arias became the biggest-selling classical album by a solo artist of all time, and with over 20 million copies sold worldwide, his 1997 pop album, Romanza, became the best-selling album by an Italian artist of any genre in history,] as well as the best-selling album by a foreign artist in Canada,and a number of other countries in Europe and Latin America. The album's first single, "Time to Say Goodbye", topped charts all across Europe, including Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for fourteen consecutive weeks, breaking the all-time sales record, with over 3 million copies sold in the country. The single went on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. nWidely regarded as both the most popular Italian and classical singer in the world, Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006, and on March 2, 2010, was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to Live Theater.n*nSarah Brightman (born 14 August 1960) is an English classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter, dancer and trained cosmonaut. She has sung in many languages, including English, Spanish, French, Latin, German, Italian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Occitan.Brightman began her career as a member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip and released several disco singles as a solo performer. In 1981, she made her West End musical theatre debut in Cats and met composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, whom she married. She went on to star in several Broadway musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, where she originated the role of Christine Daaé. The Original London Cast Album of the musical was released in CD format in 1987 and sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it the biggest-selling cast album of all time.After retiring from the stage and divorcing Lloyd Webber, Brightman resumed her music career with former Enigma producer Frank Peterson, this time as a classical crossover artist. She is often credited as the creator of this genre and remains among the most prominent performers, with worldwide sales of more than 30 million records and 2 million DVDs, establishing herself as the world's best-selling soprano of all time.Her 1996 duet with the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, "Time To Say Goodbye", topped charts all over Europe and became the highest and fastest selling single of all time in Germany, where it stayed at the top of the charts for fourteen consecutive weeks and sold over 3 million copies.It subsequently became an international success selling 12 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. She has now collected over 180 gold and platinum sales awards in 38 different countries. In 2010 she was named by Billboard the 5th most influential and best-selling classical artist of the 2000s decade in the U.S and according to Nielsen SoundScan, she has sold 6.5 million albums in the country. nBrightman is the first artist to have been invited twice to perform at the Olympic Games, first at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games where she sang "Amigos Para Siempre" with the Spanish tenor Jose Carreras with an estimated global audience of a billion people, and sixteen years later in Beijing, this time with Chinese singer Liu Huan, performing the song "You and Me" to an estimated 4 billion people worldwide. Less
