STEPHEN CALLEJA

Local fans of Claudio Baglioni were surprised and thrilled to find Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja included in a list of 69 singers and musicians who contributed to the new double CD album released by the Italian singer last Friday.

Calleja is the only non-Italian singer to participate in the new album, called Q.PG.A. – an acronym of his 1972 success Questo Piccolo Grande Amore (This Small Great Love). Included with the rest of the Italian artists is Baglioni’s only son, Giovanni.

The song that Calleja sings with Baglioni is the second one on the B disc, and is called Quel Giorno (That Day). This song is also found on the original album but, as with all the others, it has been modernised.

When it was issued in 1972, Questo Piccolo Grande Amore was the first so-called ‘concept album’ – a series of songs which, one after the other, are connected to form one storyline.

The new double album, however, also contains new additions to the story, and in total there are 150 minutes of music in 52 songs – 37 more than the original album, which Baglioni described as “traces of my memory”.

Earlier this year, a film version of the storyline found in Questo Piccolo Grande Amore was also released in Italy.

The singers who have collaborated with Baglioni include Mina, Andrea Bocelli, Antonello Venditti, Fiorella Mannoia, Franco Battiato, the group I Pooh, Laura Pausini, Jovanotti, Fiorello, Gianni Morandi and Riccardo Cocciante.

Morandi and Cocciante took part in a concert organised by Baglioni at the Valletta Waterfront on 25 August 2007. Baglioni gave a solo concert at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in December 2005.

Baglioni said that he will start working on a new album in the spring.