As Italy prepares for the week of the Sanremo Music Festival (February 24–28), Giacomo Bucci, a composer and arranger active in film and audiovisual media, is getting ready to launch a project that looks at mainstream music through the lens of orchestral tradition. Mainstream Overtures will be released on March 6, 2026, just one week after the conclusion of the Festival.
The timing is no coincidence: “At a time when the attention of the Italian public is focused on pop music, I want to show how these songs can live a second life through the symphonic language,” Bucci explains. “These are not simple orchestral covers, but reinterpretations that preserve the soul of the original tracks while translating them into a different expressive vocabulary.”
The album features arrangements of twelve songs that have topped international charts in recent years: “APT.” by Bruno Mars and ROSÉ, “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd, “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift, “Hymn for the Weekend” by Coldplay, “Numb” by Linkin Park, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth, “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi, “Without You” by Avicii and Sandro Cavazza, and “Zombie Lady” by Damiano David.
The latter choice is particularly meaningful: Damiano David, winner of the 2021 Sanremo Festival with Måneskin and now pursuing a solo career, represents the perfect bridge between the Festival’s tradition and the international pop scene.
Giacomo Bucci, born in Isernia on July 16, 1990, has been living in Brescia for five years, where he teaches music at the Istituto Comprensivo di Vobarno. However, his main activity remains composing for film and audiovisual media.
A graduate in Percussion from the Conservatorio L. Perosi in Campobasso and specialized in Music for Multimedia and Audiovisual Contexts at the Conservatorio Nicola Sala, Bucci has composed soundtracks for national and international productions. Among his most significant works: L'Uomo senza Gravità by Marco Bonfanti (co-composition and orchestration), the short film Apolide, the FAO commercial “Hungry Farmers,” and the feature film To Paradise, with soundtrack released by Beat Records.
Mainstream Overtures is the natural development of The King of Pop for Orchestra, Bucci’s previous project dedicated to the repertoire of Michael Jackson. “With Michael Jackson, I explored how 1980s and 1990s pop music could be translated into symphonic form. Now I wanted to engage with contemporary sound: electronic productions, minimal beats, processed vocals. The challenge is to maintain that energy using only acoustic instruments.”
The composer stands out for an approach that emphasizes timbral color, orchestral texture, and the creation of emotional landscapes that balance technical rigor with expressive depth. A language he refined by composing for images, where every note must serve the narrative.
The album is set for release on March 6 on all digital platforms. “I hope that those who have just experienced the excitement of Sanremo will be curious to hear these songs they already know in a completely new guise,” the composer concludes. “Pop and classical music are not separate worlds: they are different languages telling the same human emotions.”