Franco Nanni started out with a classical education in organ and piano, then he began his personal musical journey in 1978 in the Electronic Music School at the Bologna Conservatory with Gianfelice Fugazza. in 1983 he published Lost Time, an unusual example of 1980s ‘Italian disco’.
In 1990, L’angelo dei numeri (The Angel of Numbers) was released, which combines electronics with a suite of entirely acoustic tracks.
In 1995 Vita was released, sung by Silvia Testoni, distributed by BMG-Ricordi.
This was followed by more than 20 years of silence during which he took up the profession of psychologist, which he still does today.
Since 2017 he has resumed a public musical activity, with some releases of electronic music on vinyl (Our time, on the Orbeatize label) and Wet in streaming. Over the years he has never abandoned the acoustic piano, and A life (2022) collects the intimate moments with the piano written over a quarter of a century, marking a heartfelt return to a more meditated and corporeal expressiveness.
May 2023: the album AFTERGLOW was released, seven piano improvisations realized in the residual afterglow of the evening.
After the release of AFTERGLOW a new phase began, characterised by solo piano, alternating improvisation with composition, with a series of EPs, singles and albums, among which ‘Cerco un paese innocente’ (I’m looking for an innocent country), an EP from autumn 2023, which reached over 15,000 listens on Spotify in just a few months.
Apart from the unusual and in some ways surprising streaming release of the electronic album Desperation is joy, Nanni has remained faithful to certain principles: no electronics, no special effects, no virtuosity, just a piano and a bare, essential language where every note is necessary.
As of 2025, he began to incorporate the voice into his work as an improvisational part of a feeling that encompasses the body, the sound and the emotion. You can hear a preview here:
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