Piero Cassano

Piero Cassano (born September 13, 1948 in Genoa) is an Italian keyboardist, singer and composer, a founding member of the Genoan band Matia Bazar.
Early career and Jet.
Cassano started playing the piano at a young age. In 1971 he founded the progressive rock band JET with fellow musicians Aldo Stellita and Carlo Marrale. The band released an album, "Fede, speranza, carità" and unsuccessfully participated to the Sanremo Music Festival 1973 with the song "Anika na-o".
Matia Bazar: first stint.
In 1975 vocalist Antonella Ruggiero and drummer Giancarlo Golzi joined Jet, resulting in a new band: Matia Bazar. In a six-year span, Cassano composed many of their hits, namely "Stasera...che sera!" (1975), "Per un'ora d'amore" (1975), "Cavallo bianco" (1975), "Solo tu" (1977), "...e dirsi ciao" – the winning song of the Sanremo Music Festival 1978, "Raggio di luna" (the Italian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1979) and "C'è tutto un mondo intorno" (1979).
In 1981 Cassano decided to leave Matia Bazar to pursue other projects.
As a composer and producer.
In 1983, Cassano started a collaboration with lyricist . Together, they helped launch newcomer Eros Ramazzotti, writing for him hits like "Una storia importante", "Adesso tu", "Questo mio vivere un po' fuori", "Musica è", "Ti sposerò perché", "Ciao pà", "Cose della vita" from 1985 to 1993.
Cassano also collaborated with many other Italian and international artists like Anna Oxa, Laura Bono, Mina, Milva, Fausto Leali, Demis Roussos, Ginette Reno, Mireille Mathieu, Mocedades, Sergio Dalma.
He also composed the Italian openings of several popular anime, notably "Little Pollon" and "Sailor Moon", sung by Cristina D'Avena.
Second stint with Matia Bazar.
In 2000 Cassano rejoined Matia Bazar, releasing six more studio albums and taking part in five editions of the Sanremo Music Festival: in 2000 (with "Brivido caldo", reaching the 8th place), in 2001 (with "Questa nostra grande storia d'amore", ranked #3) and in 2002, this time winning the contest with "Messaggio d'amore"; then again in 2005 (with "Grido d'amore", #3) and finally in 2012 (with "Sei tu", which failed to qualify for the finals).
Following a long hiatus due to bandmate Giancarlo Golzi's unexpected death in 2015, Cassano left again the band in May 2017.