CHILDREN'S SONGS

Children have always occupied a special place in music, beginning with the folk rhymes and lullabies that make up the repertoire of all Italian region's. The entry of the world of childhood in the genre of the song coincided with the creation of a market for a new category of consumers. Following the example of American popular culture, which had been successfully experimenting with children's products (cartons, films, songs, comic books and newspapers), since the 1940s radio, cinema, television and discography have produced unprecedented synergies, starting with the Zecchino d’Oro, the first Festival devoted to songs for children. First aired in 1959 and indissolubly associated with the friars of the Antoniano of Bologna, this event pioneered the genre, and has been broadcast in Eurovision since 1969. Over the years it has encouraged the participation of young interpreters from five continents, effectively becoming an international showcase where the use of the Italian language remains predominant. The section includes theme songs from programmes that have made the history of teenage TV – from TV series to cartoons – many of which rose to the top of the charts also thanks to popular faces in the music industry for adult audiences. It features theme music and songs from children's films, nursery rhymes and school songs, and, finally, music for younger audiences written by lyricists and made popular by well-known performers of pop, rock and dance music. A separate section is devoted to the Christmas repertoire, in which the infant, identified with the Child Jesus, is central. Rooted in regional folklore, since the 1960s this repertoire has gradually integrated covers of the wider songbook in the English language, as well as unpublished tunes, bearing witness to the growing globalization of Christmas as a media event.