Romano Musumarra

Romano Musumarra (born 21 July 1956) is an Italian composer, arranger, musician and record producer.

Born in Rome, Musumarra approached music as a child, learning to play pipe organ at his church. He studied piano, composition and conducting at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and in 1975 he formed the melodic pop-rock group La Bottega dell'Arte, with whom he achieved some significant success throughout the 1970s.

In 1978 he made an electronic album called Automat together with Claudio Gizzi. On the album was the song Droid.

In 1983 he left La Bottega dell'Arte and devoted himself to the activity of arranger and composer, arranging among others works by Riccardo Cocciante, Mango, Fred Bongusto and Franco Califano, and composing the music for Severino Gazzelloni's album Azzurra.

In 1984, after listening to an audition of her, he asked to newcomer Jeanne Mas to record one of his compositions, "Toute Première Fois". After hearing the song, which featured an unusual mix of acoustic and electronic sounds for the time, EMI signed Mas and the resulting single was a great success in France, reaching the number eight on the singles chart. Musumarra continued his collaboration with Mas, composing and producing the tracks on her first two albums, including "Johnny, Johnny" and "En rouge et noir", both number one in the French chart.

Due to the success of his work with Jeanne Mas he was increasingly in demand by French artists, so at the end of 1985 he decided to move to Fr…