Laura Pausini

Laura Pausini (born 16 May 1974) is an Italian singer. She rose to fame in 1993, winning the newcomer artists' section of the 43rd Sanremo Music Festival with her debut single "La solitudine", which became an Italian standard and an international hit. Her self-titled debut album was released in Italy on 23 April 1993 and later became an international success, selling two million copies worldwide.

Its follow-up, Laura, was released in 1994 and confirmed her international success, selling three million copies worldwide. Pausini has released fifteen studio albums, two international greatest hits albums and one compilation album for the Anglophone market only. She speaks four languages: English, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. She mostly performs in Italian and Spanish, but has also recorded and sung songs in Portuguese, English, French, German, Latin, Chinese, Catalan, Neapolitan, Romagnol and Sicilian.

Pausini appeared as a coach on both the Mexican and Spanish versions of international reality television singing competition franchise The Voice, was a judge on the first and second series of La banda, and is likewise a judge on the Spanish version of international franchise The X Factor. In 2016, she debuted as a variety show presenter, hosting the television show Laura & Paola, with actress Paola Cortellesi.

In 2004, AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier considered Pausini's sales "an impressive feat for someone who'd never really broken into the lucrative English-language market". In 2014, FIMI certified Pausini's sales of more than 70 million records with a FIMI Icon Award, making her the fourth best-selling female artist in Latin music, and the best-selling female non-Spanish speaking Latin music artist.

Throughout her career, she has won numerous music awards in Italy and internationally. In 2006, she won a Grammy Award, receiving the accolade for Best Latin Pop Album for the record Escucha. In 2021, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song with "Io sì (Seen)" from the film The Life Ahead. The single also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, making it the first Italian-language song to win the award.

She has been honoured as a Commander Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and as a World Ambassador of Emilia Romagna. The elder of two daughters, Laura Pausini was born in Faenza, in the Province of Ravenna to Fabrizio Pausini and Gianna Ballardini. She grew up in Solarolo, a small comune in the same region. Her father is a former pianist who also played as a sessionman for ABBA's Frida Lyngstad and entered a band whose members later founded the Italian pop group Pooh.

After becoming a piano bar artist, he encouraged Pausini to start performing as a singer. Her first live performance was on 16 May 1985, when she sang together with her father in a restaurant in Bologna. Since then, her father started giving her singing lessons and she continued to perform alongside him in local piano bars. In the meanwhile, she also started singing in a church choir.

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