title: Madrid

text: The main annual international event in cycling, the Vuelta a España (La Vuelta), is one of the three worldwide prestigious three-week-long Grand Tours, and its final stages takes place in Madrid on the first Sunday of September. In tennis, the city hosts Madrid Open, both male and female versions, played on clay court. The event is part of the nine ATP Masters 1000 and nine WTA 1000 tournaments. It is held during the first week of May in the Caja Mágica. Additionally, Madrid hosts the finals of the major tournament for men's national teams, Davis Cup, since 2019.


title: Madrid

text: Education in Spain is free, and compulsory from 6 to 16 years. The education system is called LOE ("Ley Orgánica de Educación").


title: Madrid

text: Madrid is home to many public and private universities. Some of them are among the oldest in the world, and many of them are the most prestigious universities in Spain.


title: Madrid

text: The National Distance Education University ("Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia"; UNED) has as its mission the public service of higher education through the modality of distance education. At more than 205,000 students (2015), UNED has the largest student population in Spain and is one of the largest universities in Europe. Since 1972, UNED has sought to translate into action the principle of equal opportunity in access to higher education through a methodology based on the principles of distance learning and focused on the needs of the student.


title: Madrid

text: The Complutense University of Madrid ("Universidad Complutense de Madrid"; UCM) is the second largest university in Spain after UNED and one of the oldest universities in the world. It has over 11,000 staff members and a student population of 117,000. Most of the academic staff is Spanish. It is located on two campuses, the main one of Ciudad Universitaria in the Moncloa-Aravaca district, and the secondary campus of Somosaguas, located outside the city limits in Pozuelo de Alarcón and founded in 1971. The Complutense University of Madrid was founded in Alcalá de Henares, old Complutum, by Cardinal Cisneros in 1499. Nevertherless, its real origin dates back to 1293, when King Sancho IV of Castile built the General Schools of Alcalá, which would give rise to Cisnero's Complutense University. During the course of 1509–1510 five schools were already operative: "Artes y Filosofía" (Arts and Philosophy), "Teología" (Theology), "Derecho Canónico" (Canonical Laws), "Letras" (Liberal Arts) and "Medicina" (Medicine). In 1836, during the reign of Isabel II, the university was moved to Madrid, where it took the name of Central University and was located at San Bernardo Street. Subsequently, in 1927, a new University City (Ciudad Universitaria) was planned to be built in the district of Moncloa-Aravaca, in lands handed over by the King Alfonso XIII to this purpose. The Spanish Civil War turned the University City into a war zone, causing the destruction of several schools in the area, as well as the loss of part of its rich scientific, artistic and bibliographic heritage.


title: Madrid

text: In 1970 the Government reformed the High Education, and the Central University became the Complutense University of Madrid. It was then when the new campus at Somosaguas was created to house the new School of Social Sciences. The old Alcalá campus was reopened as the independent UAH, University of Alcalá, in 1977. Complutense also serves to the population of students who select Madrid as their residency during their study abroad period. Students from the United States for example, might go to Madrid on a program like API (Academic Programs International) and study at Complutense for an intense immersion into the Spanish Language. After studying at the university, students return home with a fluent sense of Spanish as well as culture and diversity.


title: Madrid

text: The Technical University of Madrid ("Universidad Politécnica de Madrid"; UPM), is the top technical university in Spain. It is the result of the merger of different Technical Schools of Engineering. It shares the Ciudad Universitaria campus with the UCM, while it also owns several schools scattered in the city centre and additional campuses in the Puente de Vallecas district and in the neighbouring municipality of Boadilla del Monte.


title: Madrid

text: The Autonomous University of Madrid ("Universidad Autónoma de Madrid"; UAM) was instituted under the leadership of the physicist, Nicolás Cabrera. The Autonomous University is widely recognised for its research strengths in theoretical physics. Known simply as "La Autónoma" by locals, its main site is the Cantoblanco Campus, located at the North of the municipality, close to its boundaries with the neighbouring municipalities of Alcobendas, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Tres Cantos.


title: Madrid

text: Located on the main site are the Rectorate building and the Faculties of Science, Philosophy and Fine Arts, Law, Economic Science and Business Studies, Psychology, Higher School of Computing Science and Engineering, and the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education. The UAM is considered the institution to study law in Spain, The Medical School is sited outside the main site and beside the Hospital Universitario La Paz.


title: Madrid

text: The private Comillas Pontifical University ("Universidad Pontificia Comillas"; UPC) has its rectorate and several faculties in Madrid. The private Nebrija University is also based in Madrid. Some of the big public universities headquartered in the surrounding municipalities also have secondary campuses in Madrid proper: it is the case of the Charles III University of Madrid ("Universidad Carlos III de Madrid"; UC3M) with its main site in Getafe and an educational facility in Embajadores (after signing a deal with the regional government and the city council in 2011) and the King Juan Carlos University ("Universidad Rey Juan Carlos"; URJC) having its main site in Móstoles and a secondary campus in Vicálvaro. The private Camilo José Cela University ("Universidad Camilo José Cela"; UCJC) has a postgrade school in Chamberí.


title: Madrid

text: IE Business School (formerly Instituto de Empresa) has its main campus on the border of the Chamartín and Salamanca districts of Madrid. IE Business School recently ranked #1 in WSJ's 2009 rankings for Best MBA Programs under 2 years. It scored ahead of usual stalwarts, INSEAD and IMD, giving it top billing among International MBA programs. Although based in Barcelona, both IESE Business School and ESADE Business School also have Madrid campuses. These three schools are the top-ranked business schools in Spain, consistently rank among the top 20 business schools globally, and offer MBA programs (in English or Spanish) as well as other business degrees. Madrid is a good destination for business schools and a city much desired by foreign students. The most important Spanish business schools (IESE, IE, ESADE) have invested 125 million euros in expanding their campuses in Madrid in 2020.


title: Madrid

text: Other Madrid business schools and universities that have MBA programs include: EAE Business School (in English and Spanish), the Charles III University of Madrid through the "Centro de Ampliación de Estudios" (in English or Spanish); the Comillas Pontifical University (in Spanish only) and the Technical University of Madrid (in Spanish only).


title: Madrid

text: Madrid is served by several roads and three modes of public surface transport, and two airports, one of them being almost two different airports. A great many important road, rail and air links converge on the capital, providing effective connections with other parts of the metropolitan region and with the rest of Spain and other parts of Europe.


title: Madrid

text: Cars (except for hybrid and electric vehicles as well as residents and guests) were banned in the Madrid Central low-emission zone in 2018. Pollution in the area dropped following the ban. In 2016 it was announced that Madrid will stop the use of all diesel powered cars and trucks within the next decade.


title: Madrid

text: Madrid is the centre of the most important roads of Spain. Already in 1720, the "Reglamento General de Postas" enacted by Philip V configurated the basis of a radial system of roads in the country.


title: Madrid

text: Madrid features a number of the most prominent "autovías" (fast dualled highways), part of the . Clock-wise starting from the north: the A-1 (Madrid–Irún–French border), A-2 (Madrid–Zaragoza–Barcelona–French border), A-3 (Madrid–Valencia), A-4 (Madrid–Córdoba–Sevilla–Cádiz), A-5 (Madrid–Badajoz–Portuguese border) and the A-6 (Madrid–A Coruña). The A-42, another highway connecting Madrid to Toledo, is also part of the State Network.


title: Madrid

text: The M-607 connects Madrid to the Puerto de Navacerrada. It is a fast dualled highway in its initial stretch from Madrid to Colmenar Viejo, and part of the (in relation to the concerning administration, not to the technical features of the road).


title: Madrid

text: Due to the large amount of traffic, new toll highways were built parallel to the main national freeways. Their names are , R-3, R-4 and and they were intended to provide a paid alternative to the often overcrowded free radials. However, except the R-3, they do not end close to the M-30 innermost ring road, as the R-2 finishes in the M-40, the R-4 in the M-50 and the R-5 in the M-40.


title: Madrid

text: The innermost ring-road, the M-30, is the only one with its path strictly located within the Madrid municipal limits. It is owned by the Madrid City Council and operated by Madrid Calle 30, S.A. It is the busiest Spanish road, famous for its traffic jams. A significant portion of the southern part runs underground parallel to the Manzanares, with tunnel sections of more than in length and 3 to 6 lanes in each direction.


title: Madrid

text: The second ring-road, the M-40 (part of the State Road Network) circles the city, while also extending to other surrounding municipalities. A NW stretch of the road runs underground, below the southern reaches of the Monte de El Pardo protected area.


title: Madrid

text: The M-45 partially circles the city, connecting the M-40 and M-50, passing through areas like Villaverde and Vallecas in the South-East of the municipality.


title: Madrid

text: The M-50, the Madrid's outer ring road, connects municipalities and cities in the metropolitan area, like Fuenlabrada, Móstoles, Getafe, Leganés in the South and Boadilla del Monte and Las Rozas in the West.


title: Madrid

text: There are four major components of public transport, with many intermodal interchanges. The Consorcio Regional de Transportes de Madrid (CRTM) coordinates the public transport operations across multiple providers in the region, harmonizing fares for the commuter rail, rapid transit, light rail and bus transport services provided by different operators.


title: Madrid

text: The Metro is the rapid transit system serving Madrid as well as some suburbs. Founded in 1919, it underwent extensive enlargement in the second half of the 20th century. It is the second longest metro system in Europe (after London's) at . , it has 302 stations. Only the Métro of Paris has more stations. It features 13 lines; 12 of them are colour-coded and numbered 1 to 12 (Line 1, Line 2, Line 3, Line 4, Line 5, Line 6, Line 7, Line 8, Line 9, Line 10, Line 11 and Line 12), while the other one, the short "Ramal" (R), links Ópera to Príncipe Pío.


title: Madrid

text: Cercanías Madrid is the commuter rail service used for longer distances from the suburbs and beyond into Madrid, consisting of nine lines totalling and more than 90 stations. With fewer stops inside the centre of the city they are faster than the Metro, but run less frequently. This system is connected with Metro (presently 22 stations) and Light Metro. The lines are named: C-1, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-7, C-8, C-9, C-10, respectively.


title: Madrid

text: There is a dense network of bus routes, run by the municipal company Empresa Municipal de Transportes (or EMT Madrid), which operates 24 hours a day; special services called "N lines" are run during nighttime. The special Airport Express Shuttle line connecting the airport with the city centre features distinctively yellow buses. In addition to the urban lines operated by the EMT, the green buses ("interurbanos") connect the city with the suburbs. The later lines, while also regulated by the CRTM, are often run by private operators.


title: Madrid

text: Almost half of all journeys in the metropolitan area are made on public transport, a very high proportion compared with most European cities.


title: Madrid

text: The taxicabs are regulated by a specific sub-division of taxi service, a body dependent of the Madrid City Council. The authorisation entails a badge for the vehicle and a license for the driver, who has to be older than 18. Since the 1970s, the fleet of taxis has remained stable roughly around vehicles, accounting for in 2014.


title: Madrid

text: In terms of longer-distance transport, Madrid is the central node of the system of "autovías", giving the city direct fast road links with most parts of Spain and with France and Portugal. It is also the focal point of one of the world's three largest high-speed rail systems, "Alta Velocidad Española" (AVE), which has brought major cities such as Seville and Barcelona within 2.5 hours travel time. There are now of AVE track, connecting Madrid with 17 provincial capitals, and further lines are under construction.


title: Madrid

text: Also Spain business are designing new high speed trains which will be the new generation AVE like Talgo AVRIL.


title: Madrid

text: Aside from the local and regional bus commuting services, Madrid is also a node for long-distance bus connections to plenty of national destinations. The in Méndez Álvaro, the busiest bus station in the country, also features international bus connections to cities in Morocco as well as to diverse European destinations.


title: Madrid

text: Madrid is also home to the Madrid-Barajas Airport, the sixth-largest airport in Europe, handling over 60 million passengers annually, of whom 70% are international travellers, in addition to the majority of Spain's air freight movements. Barajas is a major European hub, yet a largely westward facing one, specialized in the Americas, with a comparatively lighter connectivity to Asia. Madrid's location at the centre of the Iberian Peninsula makes it a major logistics base. Madrid-Barajas Airport has 4 Terminals and also the terminal 4S, called Satellite terminal, this terminal is from the terminal 4 and connected by an Automated People Mover System (AMP) train.


title: Madrid

text: The smaller (and older) Cuatro Vientos Airport has a dual military-civilian use and hosts several aviation schools. The Torrejón Air Base, located in the neighbouring municipality of Torrejón de Ardoz, also has a secondary civilian use aside from the military purpose.


title: Madrid

text: Madrid hosts 121 foreign embassies accredited before Spain, comprising the totality of resident embassies in the country. The headquarters of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and the Diplomatic School are also located in the city.


title: Madrid

text: Madrid hosts the seat of international organizations such as the United Nations' World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), the (OIJ), the (OISS), the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), the Club of Madrid and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).


title: Madrid

text: Madrid is part of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities establishing brotherly relations with the following cities through the issuing of a collective statement in October 1982:


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Andrea Bocelli (; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor and multi-instrumentalist. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Il mare calmo della sera".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Since 1994, Bocelli has recorded 15 solo studio albums of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 75 million records worldwide. He has had success as a crossover performer, bringing classical music to the top of international pop charts. His album "Romanza" is one of the best-selling albums of all time, while "Sacred Arias" is the biggest selling classical album by any solo artist in history. "My Christmas" was the best-selling holiday album of 2009 and one of the best-selling holiday albums in the United States. The 2019 album "Sì" debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and US "Billboard" 200, becoming Bocelli's first number-one album in both countries. His song "Con te partirò", included on his second album "Bocelli", is one of the best-selling singles of all time. The track was licensed to feature in a series of television commercials for TIM in the late 1990s, which eventually became very popular in Italy.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In 1998, Bocelli was named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. He duetted with Celine Dion on the song "The Prayer" for the animated film "Quest for Camelot", which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 1999, he was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards. He captured a listing in the "Guinness Book of World Records" with the release of his classical album "Sacred Arias", as he simultaneously held the top three positions on the US Classical Albums charts.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006 and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 2 March 2010 for his contribution to Live Theater and he was awarded a Gold Medal for Merit in Serbia in 2022. Singer Celine Dion has said that "if God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli", and record producer David Foster has often described Bocelli's voice as the most beautiful in the world.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli was born with impaired sight to Alessandro and Edi Bocelli on 22 September 1958. He was born with congenital glaucoma. He stated that his mother's decision to give birth to him and overrule the doctor's advice was the inspiration for him to oppose abortion.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli grew up on his family's farm where they sold farm machinery and made wine in the small village of La Sterza, a "frazione" of Lajatico, Tuscany, Italy, about south of Pisa. His mother and younger brother Alberto still live in the family home; his father died in 2000.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli showed a great passion for music as a young boy. His mother has said that music was the only thing that would comfort him. He started piano lessons at age 6 and later learned to play the flute, saxophone, trumpet, trombone, guitar, and drums. His nanny Oriana gave him the first record of Franco Corelli, and he began to show interest in pursuing the career of a tenor. By age 7, he was able to recognize the famous voices of the time and tried to emulate the great singers.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: At age 12, Bocelli lost his vision completely due to a football accident. He was hit in the eye playing goalkeeper during a match and experienced a brain hemorrhage. Doctors resorted to leeches in a last-ditch effort to save his sight, but they were unsuccessful and he remained blind.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli also spent time singing during his childhood. He gave his first concert in a small village not far from where he was born. He won his first song competition at age 14 with "'O sole mio" at the Margherita d'Oro in Viareggio. He finished secondary school in 1980, and then studied law at the University of Pisa. To earn money, he performed evenings in piano bars, and it was there that he met his future wife Enrica in 1987. He completed law school and spent one year as a court-appointed lawyer.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In 1992, Italian rock star Zucchero held auditions for tenors to make a demo tape of his song "Miserere", to send to Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. After hearing Bocelli on tape, Pavarotti urged Zucchero to use Bocelli instead of him. Zucchero eventually persuaded Pavarotti to record the song with Bocelli, and it became a hit throughout Europe. In Zucchero's European concert tour in 1993, Bocelli accompanied him to sing the duet, and he was also given solo sets in the concerts, singing "Nessun dorma" from Giacomo Puccini's opera "Turandot". Bocelli signed with the Sugar Music label in Milan after Caterina Caselli heard Bocelli sing "Miserere" and "Nessun Dorma" at a birthday party for Zucchero.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In December, Bocelli entered the preliminary round of the Sanremo Music Festival in the category of Giovani, performing "Miserere". He won the preliminary competition with the highest marks ever recorded in the newcomers section. On 28 December, he debuted in the classical world in a concert at the Teatro Romolo Valli in Reggio Emilia. In February 1994, he entered the main Sanremo Festival competition with "Il mare calmo della sera", and he won the newcomers section, again with a record score. Following his win, Bocelli released his debut album of the same name in April, and it entered the Italian Top Ten, being certified platinum within weeks.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In May 1994, he toured with pop singer Gerardina Trovato. In September, he sang at Pavarotti's annual Charity Gala concert, "Pavarotti International" in Modena, where he sang Ruggiero Leoncavallo's "Mattinata" and sang a duet with Pavarotti, Maurizio Morante's "Notte e Piscatore". In September, he made his opera debut as Macduff in Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa. Bocelli had been an agnostic, but around 1994, partly as a result of immersing himself in the works of Russian author Leo Tolstoy, he returned to the practice of the Catholic faith. He performed the hymn "Adeste Fideles" in Rome before Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica at Christmas.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: As winner of the newcomers section at the 1994 Sanremo Festival, Bocelli was invited to return the following year. He entered the main competition with "Con te partirò" and finished in fourth place. The song was included on his second album, "Bocelli", produced by Mauro Malavasi and released in November 1995. In Belgium, "Con te partirò" became the best-selling single of all time.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: His third album, "Viaggio Italiano", was released in Italy in 1996. He was invited to sing a duet with English soprano Sarah Brightman at the final bout of German boxer Henry Maske. Brightman approached Bocelli after she heard him singing "Con te partirò" while she was dining in a restaurant. Changing the title lyric of the song to "Time to Say Goodbye", they re-recorded it as a duet with members of the London Symphony Orchestra and sang it as a farewell for Maske. The single debuted atop the German charts, where it stayed for fourteen weeks. With sales nearing three million copies, and a sextuple platinum award, "Time to Say Goodbye" eclipsed the previous best-selling single by more than one million copies. He topped the Spanish singles chart in 1996 with a duet with Marta Sánchez, "Vivo por ella", the Spanish version of "Vivo per lei", recorded with Giorgia for his 1997 compilation album, "Romanza". He also recorded a Portuguese version of the song with Brazilian singer Sandy.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: The same year, Bocelli recorded "Je vis pour elle", the French version of "Vivo per lei", as a duet with French singer Hélène Ségara. Released in December 1997, the song became a hit in Belgium (Wallonia) and France, where it reached No. 1 on the charts. To date, it is the best-selling single for Ségara, and the second for Bocelli after "Time to Say Goodbye". On 3 March, he appeared in Hamburg, Germany, with Sarah Brightman to receive the ECHO music award for "Best Single of the Year".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In the summer of 1997, he gave 22 open-air concerts in Germany, and an indoor concert in Oberhausen on 31 August. In September, he performed in concert at the Piazza dei Cavalieri in Pisa for the home video "A Night in Tuscany" () with guests Nuccia Focile, Sarah Brightman and Zucchero. The concert was also Bocelli's first concert to air on PBS part of the "In The Spotlight" series. It also marked as Bocelli's debut to the American audiences. On 14 September, in Munich, Germany, he received an ECHO Klassik Best Seller of the Year award for his album, "Viaggio Italiano".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Back in Italy in Bologna on 27 September, he sang at the International Eucharistic Congress. On 19 October, he sang at the TeleFood benefit concert held in the Vatican City to raise awareness about world hunger. On 25 October, he received a Bambi Award in the Klassik category in Cologne, Germany.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli made his debut in a major operatic role in 1998 when he played Rodolfo in a production of "La bohème" at the Teatro Comunale in Cagliari from 18 to 25 February. His fifth album "" was released in March.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 19 April, Bocelli made his United States debut with a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., followed the next day by a reception at the White House with then US President Bill Clinton. On 5 May, he appeared in Monte Carlo, winning two World Music Awards, one in the category "Best Italian Singer", and one for "Best Classical Interpretation". He was also named one of "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People of 1998.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: From June to August, he toured North and South America. In September, he received his second Echo Klassik award, this time for Best Selling Classical Album with "Aria: The Opera Album". On Thanksgiving Eve, Bocelli was a guest on Céline Dion's television special "These Are Special Times" in which he joined Dion to sing "The Prayer" and he also sang "Ave Maria" solo. The duet was included on Dion's album "These Are Special Times" (1998) and was re-issued with the DVD of the TV special in 2007. The song also appeared on the "Quest for Camelot" soundtrack in 1998 and on Bocelli's album, "Sogno", the following year.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In the New Year, he performed two concerts at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. At the 56th Golden Globe Awards held on 24 January, "The Prayer" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song from the film "Quest for Camelot". At the 41st Grammy Awards ceremony on 24 February, Bocelli was nominated for Best New Artist, which was won by Lauryn Hill. Bocelli and Dion sang "The Prayer" at the ceremony. The song was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and performed by Bocelli and Dion at the ceremony held at the Los Angeles Music Center on 21 March.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: From 11 to 24 April, he toured the West Coast of North America, from San Diego to Vancouver, with a final performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Actress Elizabeth Taylor stood by his side on the stage during the encore, while he sang "The Prayer". At the invitation of Steven Spielberg, Bocelli sang in Los Angeles on 15 May before Bill Clinton at an event on behalf of the Democratic Party. At the end of May, he toured Portugal and Spain and sang with Portuguese Fado singer Dulce Pontes. On 27 June, he took part in the Michael Jackson benefit concert for suffering children in Munich's Olympic Stadium.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: From 10 July to 27 August, he appeared in a guest role for seven performances of "The Merry Widow" at the Verona Arena. As the "Tenor Conte Andrea" he performed three arias: "La donna è mobile" from Verdi's "Rigoletto"; "Tu, che m' hai preso il cuor" from Franz Lehár's "Das Land Des Laechelns" and "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from Verdi's "La traviata". On 10 September, together with soprano Daniela Dessì and two Polish singers, he performed at the Great Theatre of Łódź in Poland. From 7 October to 19 November, he made his United States operatic debut in Jules Massenet's "Werther" at the Detroit Opera House with the Michigan Opera Theater.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: He also performed at Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and gave further concerts in Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago, and made an appearance on Jay Leno's first installment of "The Tonight Show". Then Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani gave him the Crystal Apple award. His seventh album "Sacred Arias", which contains exclusively sacred music, was released worldwide on 8 November, and two weeks later reached number one on the US Classic Billboard charts – making Bocelli the first vocalist to hold all top three places on the chart, with "Aria, the opera album" in second place, and "Viaggio Italiano" in third place. The album also included the hymn of the Holy Year 2000 which was chosen as the official version by the Vatican in October. To promote "Sacred Arias", Bocelli recorded at the Roman church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in Rome, in 1999, singing most of the songs from the album. The special was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program during the 52nd Primetime Emmy Awards.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In Italy, Bocelli sang in Florence at a meeting of the centre-left Heads of State. Invited by Queen Elizabeth II, he performed at the annual Royal Variety Performance in Birmingham, UK, on 29 November. On 30 November, his book "La musica del silenzio", an autobiographical novel, was released in Italy, and in 2017 it was turned into a movie as "The Music of Silence", directed by Michael Radford. From 12 to 21 December, he performed six concerts in Barcelona, Strasbourg, Lisbon, Zagreb, Budapest and Messina, some of which were broadcast on local television. He also performed on German television; "Wetten, dass..?" on 11 December and the José Carreras Gala in Leipzig on 17 December. On 31 December, he finished a marathon twenty-four concerts in thirty days, with a concert at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York, welcoming in the new millennium.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: At the 42nd Grammy Awards, Bocelli was nominated twice. "The Prayer" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Bocelli performed it with Dion at the ceremony. His "World Tour 2000" started on 31 March. In May, his "Sacred Arias" album was voted album of the year by listeners of the Classic FM radio station in the UK. His world tour continued from 12 to 14 May with four concerts in Japan and South Korea. At the end of the UEFA European Football Championship, he performed with Valery Gergiev and Renée Fleming at a concert on the River Maas in Rotterdam. On 6 July, he performed at the Statue of Liberty in New York City for his third PBS special "". The concert was a dedication to his father, who died in the beginning of 2000. He was accompanied by the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Steven Mercurio with special guest Soprano Ana Maria Martinez and a surprise appearance by Sarah Brightman to sing with Bocelli on "Time to Say Goodbye". For the final encore, he dedicated "Sogno" to his late Father. On 17 August, he performed in Giuseppe Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" at the Verona Arena in Rome.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: His seventh album, "Verdi", was released on 11 September. In September, he performed three concerts in Australia. He received another Echo Klassik award for "Bestseller of the year" for "Sacred Arias". In November, his first complete opera recording, "La Bohème", was released. In December, he received another award in Germany, the Goldene Europa for classical music.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In January 2001, Bocelli portrayed the main character in Mascagni's opera "L'amico Fritz" at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona and again performed the tenor part in Verdi's "Requiem". On 19 March, the "Requiem" album was released with Bocelli as tenor. From 22 March to 6 April, he toured North America accompanied by Cecilia Gasdia and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. On 17 June, he performed at the re-opening of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In July, he performed two concerts in Dublin with Ana María Martínez and the New Symphony Orchestra. At the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice on 4 October, he presented his new album "Cieli di Toscana" and was recognised for having sold more than 40 million albums worldwide. In October, he opened the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sicilian opera composer Vincenzo Bellini in Catania. On 28 October, he sang Franz Schubert's "Ellens dritter Gesang" (also known as "Ave Maria", Latin for "Hail Mary") as a representative of the Roman Catholic faith, during a memorial concert at Ground Zero in New York City for the victims of the September 11 attacks there. In November, he received the Platinum Europe Award for one million sales of the album "Cieli di Toscana", and at the Italian Music Awards he was given a special award from the Federation of the Italian Music Industry for his merits as an "Ambassador of Italian music in the world". He performed seven more concerts in the US accompanied by Ana María Martínez, and on 23 December, he sang the Italian national anthem as well as works of Bellini and Verdi at the traditional Christmas concert in the Italian Senate, which was broadcast live on television for the first time.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In Berlin on 5 February, he received a Goldene Kamera award in the "Music & Entertainment" category. On 6 March, he received two World Music Awards in Monte Carlo: "World best selling classical artist" and "Best selling Italian artist". On 11 March, he gave a concert for peace at the Basilica di San Marco a Venezia in Venice, accompanied by the orchestra of the Teatro La Fenice and conducted by Lorin Maazel. On 15 March, he took part in the opening of Walt Disney Studios Park in Marne-la-Vallée France. On 7 May, Bocelli and Tony Renis received a Telegatto Italian Television award for the soundtrack of the series "Cuore". On 23 May he received the 2002 Classical BRIT Award for "Outstanding Contribution to Music". On 27 May, he performed at the Villa Madama in Rome in front of US president George W. Bush and Italian president Silvio Berlusconi. On 28 May, he took part in "Pavarotti & Friends" charity concert in Modena in aid of Angola. In June he again toured the US, then on 26 July and 3 August, he portrayed Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton in "Madama Butterfly" at the 48th Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago. On 14 October, he and Lorin Maazel presented his new album "Sentimento" to a worldwide audience. Further presentations took place in Milan and New York, and the album was released on 4 November, selling over two million copies in 40 days. On 24 October, he started his "Sentimento" tour in Zürich which took in large arenas in several European and North American cities.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In February 2003, Bocelli performed "Madama Butterfly" in an exclusive Monte Carlo concert, which was attended by Caroline, Princess of Hanover. In March for the first time he appeared as a producer, at the Sanremo Festival, where the young artists Allunati and Jacqueline Ferry sang for his new record label, Clacksong. In May his second complete opera, "Tosca", was released. It did not attract unanimous praise, though. Andreas Dorschel notices "monochrome timbre" and "little dynamic variability" in Bocelli's performance: "Whatever is suffered by Cavaradossi − torture for instance or the prospect of execution −: Bocelli does not seem to register it, but goes on in the musical equivalent of Stoic indifference." At a private benefit gala for the Royal National Institute of Blind People, Bocelli sang in front of the British Royal Family. A day later he received two awards for "Sentimento" at the 2003 Classical BRIT Award held at the Royal Albert Hall in London – "Best selling classical album" and "Album of the year". On 24 May, he performed in a benefit concert for the Arpa Foundation for Film, Music and Art in the Piazza del Campo in Siena, with sopranos Maria Luigia Borsi and Lucia Dessanti, baritone Soo Kyung Ahn, and violinist Ruth Rogers, accompanied by Marcello Rota and the Orchestra Città di Pisa. Three days later he was again invited to perform at "Pavarotti & Friends" in Modena and sang a medley of Neapolitan songs together with Pavarotti. In June, he continued his "Sentimento" tour in Athens and Cyprus. In September, he took part in a concert for the Justice ministers and Interior ministers of the European Union at the Parco della Musica in Rome. He then resumed his tour, accompanied by Maria Luigia Borsi, Ruth Rogers and Marcello Rota.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli won the "Favourite Specialist Performer" award at the UK National Music Awards in October 2003. In November he once again toured in the United States, this time accompanied by Ana Maria Martinez, Kallen Esperian and Steven Mercurio. In December he gave his first concert in China and at the end of the month, sang Gounod's "Ave Maria" at Pavarotti's wedding in Modena.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In Bologna in January, he performed as Werther in four performances of the opera of the same name. In April and May, he toured Asia again, visiting Manila, Hong Kong and Singapore. In May, he took part in a concert at Circo Massimo in Rome organised by Quincy Jones to launch the "We are the Future" project. In June, his third complete opera "Il trovatore" was released. In July, he played the part of Mario Cavaradossi in "Tosca" at the 50th Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago, and he took part in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) global campaign for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In September, he performed his "Once in a Lifetime" tour in Australia with concerts in Sydney and Melbourne and one concert in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he was joined on stage by New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 15 October, he performed at the People Conference Hall in Beijing, China, and on 17 October at the Great Hall in Shanghai.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: During early 2005, Bocelli was on tour including performances in Madeira, Hungary, Norway, US, UK, Italy and Germany. He also appeared in "Sesame Street" singing "Time to Say Goodnight" a parody of "Time to Say Goodbye" as a lullaby to Elmo. On 21 March, he performed at the "Music for Asia" benefit concert in Rome, televised on Italia 1, in aid of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake appeal.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In June, he performed at the Deutsche Opera in Berlin. On 2 July, he performed at the Paris concert as part of the Live 8 event. Also during the second part of the year, he performed in Croatia, Serbia, Italy, the US, Dubai, Switzerland and finally in Scandinavia. On 28 August, he performed at the Faenol Festival held in Vaynol, Wales and organised by Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. In December, his first contemporary music concert took place at a Lake Las Vegas village resort in Nevada, US, which was recorded for PBS and released as the "Under the Desert Sky" DVD. He also took part in the Royal Christmas Show, which took place in several cities in the US in December. The album "Werther" was released in December.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 18 February, he sang at the Toyota Center in Houston during the National Basketball Association's (NBA) 2006 All-Star Weekend, and broadcast live on the TNT Cable television network.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 26 February, Bocelli sang "Because We Believe" from his "Amore" album in the Carnevale section of the closing ceremony of the Torino Olympics. He also began another tour with a concert at the Piazza di Castello in Turin. In March, he was honoured by the Italian state with a Grande Ufficiale Italian Order of Merit (Grand Officer of the Italian Republic), given to him by then President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. The award was presented to him at the Sanremo Festival where he performed a duet with American singer Christina Aguilera on 4 March.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: From 31 March to 2 April, he took part in the Maggio Musicale in Florence where he sang the "Canto di pace (Canto of peace)" by Marco Tutino and the tenor part from Gioachino Rossini's "Messa di Gloria" and in Naples where he took part in Rossini's Petite messe solennelle.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In April 2006, he featured as a guest coach on "American Idol" helping the finalists sing the week's themed songs, "Greatest Love Songs". He also performed on that week's results show. American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee performed at three of Bocelli's concerts in California from 9 to 11 June singing duets of "Somos Novios" and "The Prayer" with Bocelli. They also performed on "J. C. Penney Jam: The Concert for America's Kids" and recorded duet versions of "Somos Novios" for the resulting album, and also "Can't Help Falling in Love" on the CD of the Under the Desert Sky DVD.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In June, he sang the Italian duet version of "Because We Believe", "Ama, credi e vai", with Gianna Nannini at the "großen Fan Party" at the opening of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, in Berlin in front of billions of worldwide television viewers.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 1 July 2007, Bocelli performed "The Music of the Night" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera", in a special musicals medley during the Concert for Diana at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Bocelli returned to his home town for a concert at the newly created Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico on 5 July 2007, with guest appearance by Kenny G, Heather Headley, Lang Lang, Elisa, Sarah Brightman and Laura Pausini. The concert was later released as "Vivere Live in Tuscany". In September, he debuted at the Avery Fisher Hall, in New York, with four concerts. October saw the release of the opera album of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" with Bocelli singing the role of Canio. In November, he won the "Best Italian Artist" and "World's Best-selling Classical Artist" awards at the World Music Awards. In December, he finished his 2006 tour with more concerts in North America and Europe.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's duet version of "Con te partirò" was used in the 2007 film "Blades of Glory", as an ice skating song. K-1 mixed martial arts fighter Yoshihiro Akiyama started using "Con te partirò" as his ring entrance music. On 8 September, Bocelli sang an arrangement of Mozart's "Ave verum corpus" at the funeral of Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Italy.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 21 October 2007, he sang "Con te partirò" on the UK television series "Strictly Come Dancing" results show, and on 30 October, he sang "The Prayer" during an ITV Special "An Audience with Céline Dion". The show was broadcast on 23 December. Alongside fellow Italian singer Laura Pausini, he sang "Vive Ya" during the 2007 Latin Grammy Awards. The song, originally released in 1997 as a duet in Italian between Bocelli and Italian singer-songwriter Trovatto on Bocelli's "Romanza", was also released in English on his 2007 album, "", as "Dare to Live". The album, "", sold over 3 million copies.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 20 January 2008, Bocelli received the Italian TV award Telegatto in platinum for "Italian music in the world", in Rome. He sang "La voce del silenzio" – "The voice of silence" – and "Dare to Live" during the ceremony.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: To promote the album, he performed "Canto della Terra" at "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" on the BBC in London on 1 February; was interviewed by Fabio Fazio on the Italian talk show "Che tempo che fa" on RAI 3 in Italy; and performed "Canto della terra", "A te" and "Besame mucho" from the album, as well as "My Way" on 2 February; and made an appearance on "The South Bank Show" in London, where he sang the French aria "Pour mon âme" on 3 February. Then on 10 February, he performed "The Prayer" at the 50th Grammy Awards, held in Los Angeles, with Josh Groban in a tribute to Luciano Pavarotti, and sang "Dare to Live" with Heather Headley the following day on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 7 May 2008, he sang at Steel Aréna in Košice, Slovakia, in front of 8,000 people. Then on 13 May he sang at the ""Teatro delle Muse"" in Ancona, Italy, for a charity concert for "Francesca Rava – N.P.H. Italia Onlus", a foundation that helps poor and disabled children around the world.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 23 May 2008, he sang "The Prayer" with Katharine McPhee in a Las Vegas tribute concert for Canadian producer and songwriter David Foster. Bocelli later praised Filipina teen-aged singer Charice, whom he first heard perform at that concert.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 2 June 2008, he performed at the Piazza del Duomo, Milan in front of 80,000 people during a concert celebrating the anniversary of the Republic of Italy's formation.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: From 17 to 28 June, Bocelli played the role of Don José on stage, opposite Hungarian mezzo-soprano Ildikó Komlósi as Carmen, in Georges Bizet's opera at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, in Rome, for four nights. Bocelli released the complete opera recording of "Carmen" in Italy in the same year, which he recorded in 2005. Myung-whun Chung conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Chœur de Radio France for the recording, and Welsh Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, was part of the Ensemble. The recording was not released internationally, until March 2010. "", a single-disc collection of some of the arias and duets of the recording, was also released in 2010.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 20 July, Bocelli held his third concert at the Teatro del Silenzio in Lajatico, his hometown. The concert was a tribute to the cinema of Italy. Its performers included Italian composer and musician Nicola Piovani, Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle, Israeli singer Noa, and Charice. Then on 31 July, he performed at a concert in Vingis Park in Vilnius, Lithuania, in front of more than 18,000 people. Australian singer Tina Arena performed two duets with Bocelli – "Canto Della Terra" and "The Prayer" – at the closing stages of the concert.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 7 August 2008, he held a benefit concert at Medjugorje, Bosnia Herzegovina, and was accompanied by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Then, during the rest of August, he was on tour in Australia and New Zealand for the third time. Tina Arena performed with him in all 5 concerts during the tour.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 26 September 2008, during the 2008 Veneto Festival, he held a concert in the Church of the Eremitani in Padova, Italy. He was accompanied by the I Solisti Veneti orchestra, celebrating its 50th birthday and conducted by Claudio Scimone, and by the Wiener Singakademie choir. The concert was a celebration of Giacomo Puccini's 150th birthday.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 10 and 11 October he performed at Petra, singing "Dare to Live" with Laura Pausini, as well as performing "E Lucevan le Stelle" from "Tosca". On 19 October, he sang "'O surdato 'nnammurato" and a duet of "Non Ti Scordar Di Me" with Cecilia Bartoli, both from the "Incanto" album, during the ECHO Awards in Germany; and later presented the soprano with an ECHO award. On 24 October, he performed at "Piazza del Plebiscito" in Naples, as a tribute to the city, where he celebrated the Italian release of "Incanto". Performing with him were flautist Andrea Griminelli, Italian pop singer Massimo Ranieri and soprano Cecilia Bartoli, with Steven Mercurio conducting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. On 31 October, he performed a solo version of "The Prayer", as well as "Because", a song from "Incanto", live on The Oprah Winfrey Show.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 21 and 22 November Bocelli was amongst a quartet of soloists (soprano Sabina Cvilak, mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich and bass Alexander Vinogradov) to sing Rossini's "Petite messe solennelle", conducted by Plácido Domingo, at the Washington National Opera in Washington, D.C. Bocelli sang twice in the piece and later the two tenors sang "The Pearl Fishers' Duet" which would be the first aria they had ever sung together. On 25 and 26 November he starred alongside soprano Verónica Villarroel in an opera in concert of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana at the ""Municipal Auditorium"" in San Antonio, Texas. He later held a concert at ""Atrio de la Catedral"" in Campeche, Mexico, on 28 November, where he sang songs from "Incanto" as well as some of his Spanish hits, including "Bésame Mucho", "Somos Novios", "Amapola" and "Por ti Volare" – the Spanish version of "Con te Partiro".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 27 May 2009, Bocelli sang "Il Gladiatore", from the "Gladiator" soundtrack, followed by the UEFA Champions League Anthem, which is based on G.F. Handel's "Zadok the Priest", during the opening ceremony of the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final, in the Stadio Olimpico, in Rome.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 3 November, "My Christmas", his first Holiday album, produced by David Foster, was released and went on to become the best-selling Holiday album of the year.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: The "Andrea Bocelli & David Foster Christmas Special", the PBS special of the album, first aired on Thanksgiving night in the United States, and continued to be broadcast in the United States and Canada throughout the month of December. In late November, the program was broadcast in Mexico and in the UK; it later aired, 15 and 25 December, on Italia 1, in Italy, 19 December, on TVE2 and TROS, in Spain and the Netherlands, and Christmas Eve, on vtm and RTL-TVI, in Belgium and Luxembourg.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 3 November, during the World Premiere of Disney's "A Christmas Carol", in Leicester Square, London, following the switching on of the annual Oxford Street and Regent Street Christmas lights, Bocelli led the St Paul's Cathedral Choir, and more than 14,000 people across the capital, as they broke the Official Guinness World Record for the biggest ever Christmas carol sing-along, singing "Silent Night". He completed his performance in Leicester Square with, "God Bless Us Everyone", the closing song of the movie, which he provided the vocals for in English, Italian and Spanish. He returned to the United Kingdom, 16 December, for an appearance on "The One Show", broadcast live by BBC One, and on "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" which aired 18 December, on ITV1.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 21 November, a segment of "Leute Heute", a German tabloid-program on ZDF, was about "My Christmas" and Bocelli's meeting in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI and 250 other artists, an event which was broadcast live earlier that day in Italy, by Rai Uno. Bocelli was also joined by the Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniano, in his home in Forte dei Marmi, where they sang "Caro Gesù Bambino", a song from "My Christmas" which was originally recorded by the choir in 1960. Rai Uno also broadcast the performance later that day, during the Zecchino d'Oro Festival. The following day, Bocelli was among Fabio Fazio's guests, on his popular Italian talk-show, Che tempo che fa, broadcast on Rai Tre. During the program Bocelli talked about his album and performed "The Lord's Prayer", "White Christmas", and "Silent Night". It was also announced that Bocelli would return to the show on 20 December and give a live concert of "My Christmas". Bocelli also took part in the annual 2009 "José Carreras Gala", on 17 December, where he sang Adeste Fideles, before singing "White Christmas" with José Carreras for the very first time; this was broadcast live, by Das Erste, in Germany. He then returning to Italy, for a concert in the Upper Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, on 19 December, which was broadcast directly after the "Urbi et Orbi" blessing of Pope Benedict XVI, 25 December, on Rai Uno.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In North America, Bocelli gave 6 concerts. On 28 November, he performed in the BankAtlantic Center, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He later performed in the Air Canada Centre, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the Izod Center, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in the William Saroyan Theatre, in Fresno, California (changed from the much larger Save Mart Center due to scheduling conflicts), in the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, and finally in the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California, on 3, 5, 8, 12 and 13 December. His last three arena concerts alone grossed a total of over 5,6 million dollars, placing him third on Billboard Magazine's week's Hot Tours ranking, behind the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Il Divo, who both held over 5 times more concerts worldwide, compared to Bocelli's three in the United States, explaining their better showings.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In the United States, Bocelli made a number of high-profile TV appearances. He first performed "White Christmas" at the 83rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, broadcast live on NBC, 26 November. He performed the song again on 30 November during "The Today Show" also live. His appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" during her "Holiday Music Extravaganza", where he sang "What Child Is This", with Mary J. Blige, and later closed the show with Adeste Fideles, was also aired the same day, and was later rebroadcast on 23 December. Bocelli also sang "Adeste Fideles" and was interviewed by Barbara Walters and Joy Behar on "The View", which aired 2 December, on ABC. On 8 December, he performed "Jingle Bells" with The Muppets on "The Jay Leno Show". He also performed a number of songs from the album, including "The Christmas Song" with Natalie Cole, during a dinner at David Foster's mansion in Malibu, which was featured on "The Dr. Phil Show", on 10 December. Bocelli also performed "White Christmas" and "Silent Night", on the "Larry King Live" and "Fox & Friends" holiday-specials, broadcast 23 December, on CNN, and 19, 24 and 25 December, on Fox News.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In Brasil, following the success of the South American leg of the "Incanto tour", where over 100,000 people attended his free concert at the São Paulo's "Parque Indipendencia", earlier in the year, it was announced that Bocelli would hold another Open-Air, entrance free, concert in Florianópolis, on 28 December, where a crowd of about a million people was expected to attend. However, due to financial and political reasons, the concert was later canceled on short notice, along with all the other events scheduled for Christmas in the city.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 31 January 2010, during the 52nd Grammy Awards, Bocelli, Mary J. Blige and David Foster joined forces again, singing "Bridge over Troubled Water" as a tribute to the victims of that year's earthquake in Haiti.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 2 March, he was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to Live Theater, at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the Roosevelt Hotel. The previous day, Bocelli, along with David Foster, were honored by "L.A. Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest" during a ceremony at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Hollywood, where "The Story Behind The Voice", a documentary about Bocelli's life and career was shown.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 12 March, Bocelli made an appearance on Skavlan, in Oslo, Norway, to promote his upcoming Scandinavian tour, giving a rare interview to the show's host Fredrik Skavlan, and later performing "Voglio Vivere Cosi", from his 2008 album "Incanto", with Norwegian Boys' choir, Sølvguttene.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In April, he returned to Scandinavia for a concert in Telenor Arena in Bærum, Norway, on 8 April, a concert in Forum Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 9 April, and finally a concert in the Ericsson Globe, in Stockholm, Sweden, on 11 April. He was joined by Heather Headley and 120 musicians from the Stockholm Concert Orchestra, in all three concerts, and by Swedish mezzo-soprano Malena Ernman in his Swedish concert.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 30 April, Bocelli sang "Nessun dorma" during the opening ceremony of the Expo 2010, in Shanghai, China. The following day, on 1 May, he held a concert, titled "Charming China", at Shanghai Stadium. The concert was later broadcast by Shanghai TV, and by CCTV Channels throughout mainland China.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: The two appearances coincided with Bocelli's Asian tour, consisting of a concert in Budokan, Tokyo, Japan, on 28 April, a concert in Jamsil Gymnasium, Seoul, South Korea, on 2 May, a concert in Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, in Hong Kong, on 4 May, a concert in Taipei Arena, Taipei, Taiwan, on 6 May, and finally a free concert, organized by the YTL Corporation, at the Singapore Botanic Gardens, in Singapore, on 8 May, attended by over 12,000 people, picked via public ballot. The concert was later broadcast, in its entirety, by Channel NewsAsia, on 28 and 29 May, and by Okto, on 30 May, in Singapore. An orchid in the Botanic Gardens' National Orchid Garden was also named after Bocelli in response to the concert. Australian pop singer Delta Goodrem performed again with Bocelli in all five concerts, after supporting him in his United States My Christmas 2009 winter tour.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 18 May, during the 2010 World Music Awards, Bocelli performed "Un Amore Cosi Grande" from his 2008 album, "Incanto", and received his seventh World Music Award, for "Best Classical Artist".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 5 July, Bocelli gave a concert at the opening of the Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, in Astana, on the occasion of Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev's 70th birthday.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 9 July, Bocelli headlined the "Celebrate Africa: The Grand Finale" Concert at the Coca-Cola Dome, in Johannesburg, South Africa, to mark the end of the World Cup, two days before the final.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 13 July, Montenegrin Statehood Day, Bocelli gave a concert at the seaside resort of Sveti Stefan, in western Montenegro, to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Sveti Stefan Hotel.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 14 July, Bocelli gave a concert at the European Parliament's Espace Léopold, in Brussels, Belgium, during "Rome in the heart of the future", an event hosted by the Vice President of the European Parliament for the seventh parliament, MEP, Roberta Angelilli. A screening of the film "Homage to Rome", directed by Franco Zeffirelli, who was present during the event, and starring Bocelli, in his cinematographic debut, was shown prior to the special concert.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 25 July, Bocelli held the fifth and final edition of the Teatro del Silenzio, in his hometown of Lajatico, Tuscany. Bocelli's guests included Spanish Catalan tenor José Carreras, and Italian rock singer Zucchero. Sculptures by Swiss artist Kurt Laurenz Metzler, who attended the concert, were exhibited during this year's edition. Bocelli was also awarded the "Pisano Doc", during the dress rehearsal for the concert, on 24 July, and received the 2010 "Premio Lunezia nel mondo", during a private ceremony held on 21 July, for "the musical-literary quality of his songs."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In September 2010, Bocelli held a concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, in Athens, Greece. All proceeds were donated to help cure cancer. Bocelli also gave concerts in Cairo, Egypt, in front of the pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza, as well as a fundraising concert inside the Duomo di Milano to benefit victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: As part of the 2010 leg of the My Christmas Tour, Bocelli gave two concerts in The O2 Arena, in London, and the Manchester Arena, in Manchester, and a concert at The O2, in Dublin, in late November 2010. His sold-out concert at the O2 in London, was the most attended show in the venue's history, with 16,500 people attending the event. In early December, Bocelli gave 6 concerts in the United States. He performed in Madison Square Garden, in New York City, Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey, TD Garden, in Boston, Toyota Center, in Houston, Staples Center, in Los Angeles, and the MGM Grand's Garden Arena, in the Las Vegas Strip.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli also took part in the Christmas in Washington special on 12 December. On 19 December, Bocelli gave a concert, conducted by Claudio Scimone, in the Italian Senate.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In January, Bocelli gave three concerts in Germany. The concerts in Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg were all part of the Notte Illuminata Tour, launched in Pisa, at the Teatro Verdi, December 2010. In February, Bocelli performed a recital on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera house as part of the tour.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In late March, early April, as part of the 2011 Latin Leg of his Incanto Tour, Bocelli gave concerts in Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and Panama City.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In May 2011, Bocelli held 5 concerts in East and Southeast Asia, and was joined by New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra during the tour. He first gave a concert in Jakarta, Indonesia. Bocelli held two other concerts in Taipei, and two concerts in Beijing.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In June and July, Bocelli gave two open-air concerts at historic sites, the first at Masada, in Israel, with all proceeds dedicated to support the residents of the Israeli regions of Galilee and Negev, and the second at Syracuse's ancient Greek theatre, in Sicily, with all proceeds donated to the "Fiamme di Solidarietà" (Flames of Solidarity) organization, to raise awareness of issues concerning the poorest and most marginalized in Italy.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli gave a free concert on 15 September, on the Great Lawn of Central Park in New York City. He was accompanied by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by its music director Alan Gilbert, and the Westminster Symphonic Choir. The concert was broadcast throughout the United States and Canada, by PBS, and in Italy, by Rai 1. "", the live album and the DVD were released 15 November.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 25 September, Bocelli led "Songs of Praise" 50th anniversary celebration, alongside LeAnn Rimes and Katherine Jenkins.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 15 October, Bocelli performed again for Pope Benedict XVI and a crowd of 8,000 people in Vatican's Audience Hall.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 7 November, he gave an open-air free concert at Praça Rui Barbosa in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, to an audience of between 80,000 and 150,000 people.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 17 November, he performed at the Children in Need Rocks Manchester concert, gaining critical acclaim for receiving a standing ovation from a crowd of pop and indie music fans.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli played the role of Romeo in Charles Gounod's opera "Roméo et Juliette", at the Teatro Carlo Felice, for two performances in February 2012. He cancelled a third performance because of pharyngitis after having vocal strain throughout.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 22 April, Bocelli gave an open-air concert at Yerevan's Liberty Square, in Armenia, dedicated to the proclamation of Yerevan as the 2012 World Book Capital; he was accompanied by the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marcello Rota. On 19 November, he performed for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at the Royal Albert Hall, during the 100th anniversary of the Royal Variety Performance.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: A new studio album titled "Passione", featuring duets with Jennifer Lopez and Nelly Furtado, was released on 29 January 2013. On 7 February, Bocelli was an honorary guest at the 61st Annual National Prayer Breakfast, held at the Washington Hilton, where he performed "Ombra mai fu" and Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" in the presence of President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, as well as other political leaders. On 20 February, he performed at the concert in Moscow Kremlin dedicated to 20th anniversary of Gazprom.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 1 June, Bocelli performed with Plácido Domingo at the Arena di Verona, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opera festival.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli released his fifteenth studio album "Cinema" on 23 October 2015. It contains renditions of classic film soundtracks and scores, featuring duets with Ariana Grande, Nicole Scherzinger and his wife Veronica Berti. The album received a nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards; the Spanish-language version was nominated for Album of the Year at the 17th Annual Latin Grammy Awards.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 7 May 2016, Bocelli performed at the King Power Stadium before Leicester City's final match of the 2015–16 Premier League against Everton, as part of the club's title celebrations.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 15 December 2017, Ed Sheeran released a collaboration with Bocelli titled "Perfect Symphony". The song is a duet version of Sheeran's song "Perfect", with many of the original English lyrics sung in Italian.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 20 September 2018, Bocelli released the single "Fall On Me" which features vocals from his son Matteo. The two performed the song on 22 October episode of "Dancing With the Stars". An English version of the song was released in October and was featured in the Walt Disney Pictures film "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" as the end credit song. Both songs appear on Bocelli's album "Sì", released on 26 October 2018.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 12 October 2018, at the request of his close friend Sarah, Duchess of York, Bocelli performed two songs at the royal wedding of her daughter Princess Eugenie, the Bach/Gounod "Ave Maria", and "Panis angelicus" by César Franck.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 1 February 2019, Bocelli performed a sold-out concert in 'Winter at Tantora' festival running at Al-'Ula for the first time in Saudi Arabia.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 3 July 2019 Bocelli performed at the opening ceremony of the 2019 Summer Universiade in Naples with three songs includes "Fall On Me" with his son Matteo.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 12 April 2020, during the national COVID-19 lockdowns in Italy, Bocelli performed an Easter Sunday concert from an empty Milan Cathedral, accompanied by cathedral organist Emanuele Vianelli. The performance, titled "Music For Hope - Live From Duomo di Milano", was streamed live over YouTube, where it continues to be available for replay. About 5 million people tuned in for the livestream performance and, by 13 April 2020, over 32 million views were logged on the archived video.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: November 2020, Bocelli released an album, Believe. It was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and featured recent pandemic related songs.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: He performed Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" during the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship held in Rome, Italy on 11 June 2021.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 5 June 2022 Bocelli performed Puccini's "Nessun Dorma" during the BBC’s Platinum Party at the Palace one of the celebrations of the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 21 October 2022, Bocelli released his first collaboration album with his son and daughter, Matteo and Virginia, titled "A Family Christmas".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli is a widely popular singer with a substantial fan base worldwide. However, he is also a polarizing figure in classical music, whose voice and performances


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: have routinely been the subject of negative reviews by critics. Italian spinto tenor Franco Corelli praised Bocelli's voice after hearing it for the first time during a master class in 1986, in Turin, and he later gave Bocelli private lessons.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Puerto Rican soprano Ana María Martínez, who regularly performs with Bocelli, said, "More than anything, Andrea has something that is unique in that he brings this light that is always around him. And this purity of heart and beauty of sound just touches the listener. It can't be described."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Celine Dion said while introducing him during her Christmas Special for "These Are Special Times", in 1998, that "if God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli," and David Foster, a producer of the album, often describes Bocelli's voice as the most beautiful in the world. Similarly, jazz singer Al Jarreau, who performed with Bocelli on the "Night of the Proms" tour in Europe in 1995, described him as "the most beautiful voice in the world," and American talk show host Oprah Winfrey commented on her talk show that, "when I hear Andrea sing, I burst into tears." After attending Bocelli's concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, British-American actress Elizabeth Taylor said, "My mind, my soul were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being. God has kissed this man and I thank God for it." Taylor had been a passionate fan of Bocelli's since the beginning of his music career in the mid-1990s. Other fans include Albert II, Prince of Monaco, who invited the tenor to sing at his wedding, as well as Sarah, Duchess of York, and actress Isabella Rossellini.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli's voice, more specifically his interpretation of opera, has been regularly criticized by classical music critics. These include Bernard Holland of "The New York Times" and Andrew Clements of "The Guardian". In 1999, "The New York Times" chief music critic Anthony Tommasini in his review of Bocelli's North American opera debut at the Detroit Opera House in the title role of Massenet's "Werther" commented, "The basic colour of Mr. Bocelli's voice is warm and pleasant, but he lacks the technique to support and project his sound. His sustained notes wobble. His soft high notes are painfully weak. Inadequate breath control often forces him to clip off notes prematurely at the end of phrases." In December 2000, Tommasini again criticised Bocelli, this time for his "La bohème" album when he stated that Bocelli "still has trouble with basic things, like breath support" and his voice had been "carefully recorded ... to help it match the trained voices of the other cast members in fullness and presence."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In describing Bocelli's singing, "The New York Times" music critic Bernard Holland noted, "the tone is rasping, thin and, in general, poorly supported. Even the most modest upward movement thins it even more, signalling what appears to be the onset of strangulation. To his credit, Mr Bocelli sings mostly in tune. But his phrasing tends toward carelessness and rhythmic jumble... The diction is not clear." Furthermore, Holland observed that "The critic's duty is to report that Mr Bocelli is not a very good singer." The Associated Press reported "Passion? Yes. Power. No. Bocelli's voice – though robust in spirit and precisely in tune, even in the upper register – had a thin quality that never opened up." Similarly, classical music critic Andrew Clements found Bocelli's studio opera recordings consistently disappointing in quality: "Bocelli's profoundly unmusical contribution, with its unvaryingly coarse tone, wayward intonation and never a phrase properly shaped, fatally undermines all their contributions." Anne Midgette of "The New York Times" agreed, noting "a thinness of voice, oddly anemic phrasing (including shortchanging upper notes of phrases in a most untenorial manner), a curious lack of expression."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: During a 2009 performance in New York, the music critic Steve Smith wrote "For cognoscenti of vocal artistry the risks involved in Mr. Bocelli's undertakings, both then and now, need no explanation. Substantial technical shortcomings masked by amplification are laid bare in a more conventional classical setting. Mr. Bocelli's tone can be pleasant, and his pitch is generally secure. But his voice is small and not well supported; his phrasing, wayward and oddly inexpressive."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In 2010, Joe Banno of "The Washington Post" gave an unfavorable review of Bocelli's , describing the oft-noted failings in Bocelli's vocal resources on full display in this performance: "Bocelli, to be fair, possesses an essentially lovely tenor and knows his stuff when it comes to selling a pop ballad. And Decca's close miking of his puny voice inflates his sound to near-Franco Corelli-like dimensions. But his short-breathed, clumsily phrased, interpretively blank and often pinched and strained singing makes his Don Jose a tough listen."


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli met his first wife, Enrica Cenzatti, while singing at piano bars early in his career. They were married on 27 June 1992. Their first child, son Amos, was born 22 February 1995. Their second son, Matteo, was born on 8 October 1997. The couple separated in 2002. Bocelli lives with his second wife and manager, Veronica Berti. They met in 2002. In September 2011, the couple announced that Berti was expecting her first and Bocelli's third child, a daughter, in the spring. His daughter Virginia was born 21 March 2012. On 12 November 2022, Andrea, Matteo and Virginia (aged 10) sang together at The Royal Albert Hall at the UK Festival of Remembrance.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli married Veronica Berti on 21 March 2014 at the Sanctuary of Montenero in the coastal town of Livorno, Italy. The couple live in Forte dei Marmi on the Mediterranean. Bocelli's first wife and two sons live in the couple's previous residence in the same comune, in Versilia.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: On 30 April 2000, Bocelli's father, Alessandro Bocelli, died. His mother encouraged him to honor his commitments, and so he sang for Pope John Paul II, in Rome, on 1 May, and immediately returned home for the funeral. At his 5 July performance, filmed for PBS as "American Dream—Andrea Bocelli's Statue of Liberty Concert", Bocelli dedicated the encore "Sogno" (Dream), from his 1999 album "Sogno", to the memory of his father.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: A section of the beach in Jesolo, on the Italian Adriatic coast, was named after Bocelli on 11 August 2003.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli is a self-declared fan of Italian football club Inter Milan. In an interview in Pisa, he told a group of Inter fans that "My passion for Inter started during my college years, when Inter was winning everything in Italy and the world. When Inter won the Champions League in 2010, I was with my friends and I was listening to the game on the radio, and everything was a little bit in advance so I was celebrating before them. That night I was also brought to tears of joy. The treble is a feeling no one in Italy will be able to equal".


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: In 2006, Bocelli convinced the municipality of his hometown Lajatico to build an outdoor theatre, the "Teatro del Silenzio". He serves as its honorary president and performs for one night only, every July; the rest of the year, the theatre doesn't operate.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Since its opening in 2006, Bocelli has held 12 concerts, every July, with guests including Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Sarah Brightman, Katherine Jenkins, Zucchero, Laura Pausini, and Elisa. Bocelli's guests have also included instrumentalists Lang Lang, Chris Botti, and Kenny G. The 2007 concert was released on CD and DVD in 2008.


title: Andrea Bocelli

text: Bocelli is the author, and co-author, of numerous works available in Italian, English, and other languages. Some books are available in Braille and others in large print. The list below is limited to his English language books which are widely available.


title: G

text: G, or g, is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is "gee" (pronounced ), plural "gees".


title: G

text: The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of 'C' to distinguish voiced from voiceless .


title: G

text: The recorded originator of 'G' is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, who added letter G to the teaching of the Roman alphabet during the 3rd century BC: he was the first Roman to open a fee-paying school, around 230 BCE. At this time, 'K' had fallen out of favor, and 'C', which had formerly represented both and before open vowels, had come to express in all environments.


title: G

text: Ruga's positioning of 'G' shows that alphabetic order related to the letters' values as Greek numerals was a concern even in the 3rd century BC. According to some records, the original seventh letter, 'Z', had been purged from the Latin alphabet somewhat earlier in the 3rd century BC by the Roman censor Appius Claudius, who found it distasteful and foreign. Sampson (1985) suggests that: "Evidently the order of the alphabet was felt to be such a concrete thing that a new letter could be added in the middle only if a 'space' was created by the dropping of an old letter."


title: G

text: George Hempl proposed in 1899 that there never was such a "space" in the alphabet and that in fact 'G' was a direct descendant of zeta. Zeta took shapes like ⊏ in some of the Old Italic scripts; the development of the monumental form 'G' from this shape would be exactly parallel to the development of 'C' from gamma. He suggests that the pronunciation > was due to contamination from the also similar-looking 'K'.


title: G

text: Eventually, both velar consonants and developed palatalized allophones before front vowels; consequently in today's Romance languages, and have different sound values depending on context (known as hard and soft C and hard and soft G). Because of French influence, English language orthography shares this feature.


title: G

text: The modern lowercase 'g' has two typographic variants: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail") 'g' and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail") ''. The single-storey form derives from the majuscule (uppercase) form by raising the serif that distinguishes it from 'c' to the top of the loop, thus closing the loop and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The double-storey form had developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a closed bowl or loop. The initial extension to the left was absorbed into the upper closed bowl. The double-storey version became popular when printing switched to "Roman type" because the tail was effectively shorter, making it possible to put more lines on a page. In the double-storey version, a small top stroke in the upper-right, often terminating in an orb shape, is called an "ear".


title: G

text: Generally, the two forms are complementary, but occasionally the difference has been exploited to provide contrast. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, opentail has always represented a voiced velar plosive, while was distinguished from and represented a voiced velar fricative from 1895 to 1900. In 1948, the Council of the International Phonetic Association recognized and as typographic equivalents, and this decision was reaffirmed in 1993. While the 1949 "Principles of the International Phonetic Association" recommended the use of for a velar plosive and for an advanced one for languages where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian, this practice never caught on. The 1999 "Handbook of the International Phonetic Association", the successor to the "Principles", abandoned the recommendation and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.


title: G

text: Wong et al. (2018) found that native English speakers have little conscious awareness of the looptail 'g' They write: "Despite being questioned repeatedly, and despite being informed directly that G has two lowercase print forms, nearly half of the participants failed to reveal any knowledge of the looptail 'g', and only 1 of the 38 participants was able to write looptail 'g' correctly."


title: G

text: In Unicode, the two appearances are generally treated as glyph variants with no semantic difference. For applications where the single-storey variant must be distinguished (such as strict IPA in a typeface where the usual g character is double-storey), the character is available, as well as an upper case version, .


title: G

text: There remain widely used a few English words of non-Romance origin where is hard followed by or ("get", "give", "gift"), and very few in which is soft though followed by such as "gaol", which since the 20th century is almost always written as "jail".


title: G

text: The double consonant has the value (hard ) as in "nugget", with very few exceptions: in "exaggerate" and "veggies" and dialectally in "suggest".


title: G

text: The digraph has the value (soft ), as in "badger". Non-digraph can also occur, in compounds like "floodgate" and "headgear".


title: G

text: The digraph (in many cases a replacement for the obsolete letter yogh, which took various values including , , and ) may represent:


title: G

text: The trigraph has the value as in "gingham" or "dinghy". Non-trigraph also occurs, in compounds like "stronghold" and "dunghill".


title: G

text: G is the tenth least frequently used letter in the English language (after Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.02% in words.


title: G

text: Most Romance languages and some Nordic languages also have two main pronunciations for , hard and soft. While the soft value of varies in different Romance languages ( in French and Portuguese, in Catalan, in Italian and Romanian, and in most dialects of Spanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft has the same pronunciation as the .


title: G

text: In Italian and Romanian, is used to represent before front vowels where would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French, is used to represent the palatal nasal , a sound somewhat similar to the in English "canyon". In Italian, the trigraph , when appearing before a vowel or as the article and pronoun "gli", represents the palatal lateral approximant .


title: G

text: Amongst European languages, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, and Slovak are an exception as they do not have in their native words. In Dutch, represents a voiced velar fricative instead, a sound that does not occur in modern English, but there is a dialectal variation: many Netherlandic dialects use a voiceless fricative ( or ) instead, and in southern dialects it may be palatal . Nevertheless, word-finally it is always voiceless in all dialects, including the standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other hand, some dialects (like Amelands) may have a phonemic .


title: G

text: In Māori, is used in the digraph which represents the velar nasal and is pronounced like the in "singer".


title: G

text: The Azerbaijani Latin alphabet uses exclusively for the "soft" sound, namely . The sound is written as . This leads to unusual spellings of loanwords: "qram" 'gram', "qrup" 'group', "qaraj" 'garage', "qallium" 'gallium'.


title: Big Ben

text: Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England, and the name is frequently extended to refer also to the clock and the clock tower. The official name of the tower in which Big Ben is located was originally the Clock Tower, but it was renamed Elizabeth Tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II.


title: Big Ben

text: The tower was designed by Augustus Pugin in a neo-Gothic style. When completed in 1859, its clock was the largest and most accurate four-faced striking and chiming clock in the world. The tower stands tall, and the climb from ground level to the belfry is 334 steps. Its base is square, measuring on each side. Dials of the clock are in diameter. All four nations of the UK are represented on the tower on shields featuring a rose for England, thistle for Scotland, shamrock for Ireland, and leek for Wales. On 31 May 2009, celebrations were held to mark the tower's 150th anniversary.


title: Big Ben

text: Big Ben is the largest of the tower's five bells and weighs . It was the largest bell in the United Kingdom for 23 years. The origin of the bell's nickname is open to question; it may be named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw its installation, or heavyweight boxing champion Benjamin Caunt. Four quarter bells chime at 15, 30 and 45 minutes past the hour and just before Big Ben tolls on the hour. The clock uses its original Victorian mechanism, but an electric motor can be used as a backup.


title: Big Ben

text: The tower is a British cultural icon recognised all over the world. It is one of the most prominent symbols of the United Kingdom and parliamentary democracy, and it is often used in the establishing shot of films set in London. The clock tower has been part of a Grade I listed building since 1970 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.


title: Big Ben

text: On 21 August 2017, a four-year schedule of renovation works began on the tower. Modifications have included adding a lift, re-glazing and repainting the clock dials, and upgrading lighting and repairing roof tiles among other improvements. With a few exceptions, such as New Year's Eve and Remembrance Sunday, the bells remained silent.


title: Big Ben

text: Elizabeth Tower, originally referred to as the Clock Tower, but more popularly known as Big Ben, was raised as a part of Charles Barry's design for a new Palace of Westminster, after the old palace was largely destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. Although Barry was the chief architect of the neo-gothic palace, he turned to Augustus Pugin for the design of the Clock Tower, which resembles earlier Pugin designs, including one for Scarisbrick Hall in Lancashire. Construction of the tower began on 28 September 1843. The building contractors were Thomas Grissell and Morton Peto. An inscribed trowel now in the Parliamentary Archives records that Emily, sister of Peto's daughter-in-law, was given the honour of laying the first stone. It was Pugin's last design before his descent into mental illness and death in 1852, and Pugin himself wrote, at the time of Barry's last visit to him to collect the drawings: "I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry for tomorrow I render all my designs for finishing his bell tower and it is beautiful".


title: Big Ben

text: Completed in 1859, the tower is designed in Pugin's Gothic Revival style, and is high making it the third tallest clock tower in the UK. Its dials (at the centre) are above ground level. The tower's base is square, measuring on each side, resting on concrete foundations thick. It was constructed using bricks clad on the exterior with sand-coloured Anston limestone from South Yorkshire, topped by a spire covered in hundreds of cast-iron rooftiles. There is a spiral staircase with 290 stone steps up to the clock room, followed by 44 to reach the belfry, and an additional 59 to the top of the spire.


title: Big Ben

text: Above the belfry and Ayrton light are 52 shields decorated with national emblems of the four countries of the UK: the red and white rose of England's Tudor dynasty, the thistle of Scotland, shamrock of Northern Ireland, and leek of Wales. They also feature the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of the Tudor king Henry VIII; the portcullis, symbolising both Houses of Parliament; and fleurs-de-lis, a legacy from when English monarchs claimed to rule France.


title: Big Ben

text: A ventilation shaft running from ground level up to the belfry, which measures by , was designed by David Boswell Reid, known as "the grandfather of air-conditioning". It was intended to draw cool, fresh air into the Palace of Westminster; in practice this did not work and the shaft was repurposed as a chimney, until around 1914. The 2017–2021 conservation works included the addition of a lift (or elevator) that was installed in the shaft.


title: Big Ben

text: Its foundations rest on a layer of gravel, below which is London clay. Owing to this soft ground, the tower leans slightly to the north-west by roughly over 55 m height, giving an inclination of approximately . This includes a planned maximum of 22 mm increased tilt due to tunnelling for the Jubilee line extension. In the 1990s, thousands of tons of concrete were pumped into the ground underneath the tower to stabilise it during construction of the Westminster section of the Jubilee line. It leans by about at the finial. Experts believe the tower's lean will not be a problem for another 4,000 to 10,000 years.


title: Big Ben

text: Journalists during Queen Victoria's reign called it "St Stephen's Tower". As members of Parliament originally sat at St Stephen's Hall, these journalists referred to anything related to the House of Commons as "news from St Stephens" (the Palace does contain a feature called St Stephen's Tower, located above the public entrance). On 2 June 2012, the House of Commons voted in support of a proposal to change the name from the "Clock Tower" to "Elizabeth Tower" in commemoration of Elizabeth II in her Diamond Jubilee year, since the large west tower now known as Victoria Tower had been renamed in tribute to Queen Victoria on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. On 26 June 2012, the House of Commons confirmed that the name change could go ahead. David Cameron, then Prime Minister, officially announced the change of name on 12 September 2012. The change was marked by a naming ceremony in which John Bercow, then Speaker of the House of Commons, unveiled a plaque attached to the tower on the adjoining Speaker's Green.


title: Big Ben

text: Inside the tower is an oak-panelled Prison Room, which can only be accessed from the House of Commons, not via the tower entrance. It was last used in 1880 when atheist Charles Bradlaugh, newly elected Member of Parliament for Northampton, was imprisoned by the Serjeant at Arms after he protested against swearing a religious oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. Officially, the Serjeant at Arms can still make arrests, as they have had the authority to do since 1415. The room, however, is currently occupied by the Petitions Committee, which oversees petitions submitted to Parliament.


title: Big Ben

text: A new feature was added in 1873 by Acton Smee Ayrton, then First Commissioner of Works and Public Buildings. The Ayrton Light is a lantern sited above the belfry and is lit whenever the House of Commons sits after dark. It can be seen from across London. Originally, it shone towards Buckingham Palace so Queen Victoria could look out of a window and see when the Commons were at work.


title: Big Ben

text: Augustus Pugin drew inspiration from the clockmaker Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy when he designed the dials. Each is made of cast iron sections bolted together. The whole frame is in diameter making them the third largest in the UK. They each contain 324 pieces of opalescent glass. Originally, the dials were backlit using gas lamps, at first only when Parliament was sitting, but they have routinely been illuminated from dusk until dawn since 1876. Electric bulbs were installed at the beginning of the 20th century. The ornate surrounds of the dials are gilded. At the base of each dial is the Latin inscription , which means "O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First". Unlike many Roman numeral clock dials, which show the "4" position as IIII, the Great Clock faces depict "4" as IV. The clock's gun metal hour hands and copper minute hands are and long respectively.


title: Big Ben

text: When completed, the frame and hands were Prussian blue, but were painted black in the 1930s to disguise the effects of air pollution. The original colour scheme was reinstated during the 2017–2021 conservation work. It was found that no fewer than six different colour schemes had been used over the past 160 years. The Victorian glass was also removed and replaced with faithful reproductions made in Germany by glassmakers Glasfabrik Lamberts.


title: Big Ben

text: The clock's movement is known for its reliability. The designers were the lawyer and amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison, and George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Construction was entrusted to clockmaker Edward John Dent; after his death in 1853 his stepson Frederick Dent completed the work, in 1854. As the tower was not completed until 1859, Denison had time to experiment: instead of using a deadbeat escapement and remontoire as originally designed, he invented a double three-legged gravity escapement, which provides the best separation between pendulum and clock mechanism, thus mitigating the effects of rain, wind and snow on the dials. Dent never patented his design, and it quickly became the standard on all new high-quality tower clocks.


title: Big Ben

text: On top of the pendulum is a small stack of pre-decimal penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock. Adding a coin has the effect of minutely lifting the position of the pendulum's centre of mass, reducing the effective length of the pendulum rod and hence increasing the rate at which the pendulum swings. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 seconds per day. It keeps time to within a few seconds per week. It is hand wound (taking about 1.5 hours) three times a week. The Keeper of the Clock is responsible for looking after the movement in addition to overseeing every aspect of maintenance around the Palace. A team of horologists are on call 24 hours a day to attend to the clock in the event of an emergency.


title: Big Ben

text: On 10 May 1941, a German bombing raid damaged two of the clock's dials and sections of the tower's stepped roof and destroyed the House of Commons chamber. Architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott designed a new five-floor block. Two floors are occupied by the current chamber, which was used for the first time on 26 October 1950. The clock ran accurately and chimed throughout the Blitz.


title: Big Ben

text: The main bell, officially known as the "Great Bell" but better known as "Big Ben", is the largest bell in the tower and part of the Great Clock of Westminster. It sounds an E-natural.


title: Big Ben

text: The original bell was a 16 ton (16.3-tonne) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons. It is thought that the bell was originally to be called "Victoria" or "Royal Victoria" in honour of Queen Victoria, but that an MP suggested the bell's current nickname of "Big Ben" during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in "Hansard".


title: Big Ben

text: Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard but, during testing, it cracked beyond repair and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast on 10 April 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.5-ton (13.76-tonne) bell. The second bell was transported from the foundry to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress; it was then pulled up to the Clock Tower's belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is tall and diameter. This new bell first chimed in July 1859; in September it too cracked under the hammer. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, the horologist Denison had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified. For three years Big Ben was taken out of commission and the hours were struck on the lowest of the quarter bells until it was repaired. To make the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with a slightly different tone ever since, and is still in use today with the crack unrepaired. Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 16.75-ton (17 tonne) bell currently hung in St Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881.


title: Big Ben

text: The origin of the nickname "Big Ben" is the subject of some debate. The nickname was applied first to the Great Bell; it may have been named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw the installation of the Great Bell, or after English heavyweight boxing champion Benjamin Caunt. Now "Big Ben" is often used, by extension, to refer to the clock, the tower and the bell collectively, although the nickname is not universally accepted as referring to the clock and tower. Some authors of works about the tower, clock and bell sidestep the issue by using the words "Big Ben" first in the title, then going on to clarify that the subject of the book is the clock and tower as well as the bell.


title: Big Ben

text: Along with the Great Bell, the belfry houses four quarter bells which play the "Westminster Quarters" on the quarter hours. The four quarter bells sound G, F, E, and B. They were cast by John Warner & Sons at their Crescent Foundry in 1857 (G, F and B) and 1858 (E). The Foundry was in Jewin Crescent, in what is now known as The Barbican, in the City of London. The bells are sounded by hammers pulled by cables coming from the link room—a low-ceiling space between the clock room and the belfry—where they are triggered by cables coming from the chime train.


title: Big Ben

text: The quarter bells play a once-repeating, 20-note sequence of rounds and four changes in the key of E major: 1–4 at quarter past, 5–12 at half past, 13–20 and 1–4 at quarter to, and 5–20 on the hour (which sounds 25 seconds before the main bell tolls the hour). Because the low bell (B) is struck twice in quick succession, there is not enough time to pull a hammer back, and it is supplied with two wrench hammers on opposite sides of the bell. The tune is that of the Cambridge Chimes, first used for the chimes of Great St Mary's church, Cambridge, and supposedly a variation, attributed to William Crotch, based on violin phrases from the air "I know that my Redeemer liveth" in Handel's "Messiah". The notional words of the chime, again derived from Great St Mary's and in turn an allusion to Psalm 37:23–24, are: "All through this hour/Lord be my guide/And by Thy power/No foot shall slide". They are written on a plaque on the wall of the clock room.