Viva Strauss

Rudy Giovannini , born on November 18, 1974 in Bolzano, is a South Tyrolean (Italian) tenor and singer of German folk music. He completed his classical voice training at the conservatories of Bolzano and Verona, and with Maestro Arrigo Pola in Modena, who also taught Luciano Pavarotti.

Giovannini first came to the attention of people in 2000 when he came third in the Grand Prix of Folk music singing “Amore, amore ”. He would repeat this in 2002 with “Donna della Raspa”. But he topped this in 2006 when he won the Grand Prix of Folk music, in the company of Belsy and the Coro Monti Pallidi in Munich singing “Salve Regina”. It was the fourth victory of Südtitrols or the third victory in a row at the Grand Prix of folk music.

Giovannini has since moved to Laives, just a few kilometres from Bolzano in Italy. Here the “Caruso of the mountains” draws the power for his numerous appearances in the whole German-speaking area plus Belgium and the Netherlands.

Passionate about music

Since his childhood, Rudy Giovannini has been passionate about music and got his first stage experience in the church choir, and later in a Jugendband until he was invited by friends to the Opera one day. This proved a very influential event, as Rudy was so excited by the performance that he also wanted to become an opera singer. So he attended the conservatories of Bolzano, Verona and Modena training as a classical singer with Maestro Arrigo Pola.

Luciano Pavarotti – who was a family friend – once told the Italian singer, “There is no first or second class music, there is only beautiful or bad music. What you want to do is beautiful music.” This eliminated Rudy Giovannini’s last doubts about venturing into the transition from classical to popular music. His CDs feature hits, folk music, Italian folk or classical music songs that make very high demands on his voice.

Köfelefest festival and prizes


In his home town of Laives this success had to be celebrated course, which led to the first “Rudy Giovannini Köfelefest”, which has become a regular event for his many fans. He would receive many more awards: in 2004 the Herbert Roth prize as the most successful tenor of “South Tyrol’s most popular singer” the “Meraner rose gold”, 2005 Folk music and several times he “Achims hit parade” (MDR) was named the King of musicians. In July 2006 he even set a record here: 72% of the votes were for his interpretation of “La Montanara”, a record which will never be broken as the show was unfortunately discontinued.

Just like the first time in 2007, the South Tyrol “mountain echo” was awarded to Rudy Giovannini. At his Köfelefest 2008 he sold 15,000 copies of “Salve Regina”, a gold record in Austria. His reputation went as far as the Vatican, as he was asked to sing at the Christmas audience for Pope John Paul II and in 2006 for his successor Pope Benedict XVI. Rudy dedicated the “Benedictus Yodel”, which he sang with Anneliese Breitenberger on his Christmas CD, to the pope.

2008 revealed a new facet to Rudy Giovannini when the South Tyrolean moderator at the Grand Prix of the Folk music had to cancel for health reasons. Very quickly, Rudy and Angelina jumped in to save the event. For the first time that year, the Grand Prix could be followed on the radio and worldwide via the Internet.

A whole new side to his career opened in 2012, when Rudy was approached by Belgium’s Marc Cortens with a novel idea that combines his love of classical and popular music in a unique way, “ Viva Strauss ”. With the Strato-Vani Orchestra he recorded the most famous Strauss melodies as songs, with lyrics by Michael Leahy in English, adapted into German with the help of Evelin Vordermeier, Marion Schimmelpfennig and Nils Bräm.

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