Michele Bravi

Before he was a name on Italian chart listings, Michele Bravi sang in a city choir in Città di Castello, a town in the province of Perugia, then gave it up. Music stayed with him through his liceo classico years as a hobby, and he later took lessons and learnt the piano. That background helps explain a career that moves between pop singles, acting and songs written alongside Tiziano Ferro and Giorgia.

Bravi came to wider notice in 2013, when he auditioned for the seventh series of X Factor Italia with Cat Stevens's "Father and Son" and was picked by Morgan for the Boys Under 25 category. He won on 12 December 2013, ahead of the band Ape Escape, with "La vita e la felicità", a song co-written by Ferro that reached number one on the Italian Singles Chart. His debut album, A passi piccoli, followed in June 2014. Later milestones include the Sanremo entry "Il diario degli errori" in 2017, the album La geografia del buio, his second Italian number one in 2021, and "Falene" with the British band Sophie and the Giants that June.