“Praise of 'the good old days' should not deafen us to those who possess a certain talent, maintaining a high artistic level of film scoring following the generation of Rota, Morricone, Piovani and Piersanti.
The duo Susan DiBona and Salvatore Sangiovanni are an exemplary case of contemporary Italian music for cinema that winks at tradition, quoting and recombining it with casual post-modernism...
"They are innovators who navigate a path made arduous by inevitability of history, transcending it without denying its existence.”
-R. Carter, Colonne Sonore , Italy's No.1 Film Music Magazine
artists' biography
American-born composer Susan DiBona and her Italian composing partner Salvatore Sangiovanni have worked on over 35 original film and television scores as well as music for commercials, opera, top 40 pop music, musical theater, and ballet since creating The Villa Studios Praia a Mare in southern Italy.
From there, their music has traveled the world over - from Dubai to India to USA, from Finland to Canada, from Greece to the UK - and has been heard by tens of millions of film and TV viewers worldwide.
Susan is a seasoned film composer and multi-instrumentalist, and has written and produced numerous scores for popular primetime German TV series and features.
Her first classical piano and theory teacher at the age of seven was the composer and pianist Leopold Godowksky III, nephew of George Gershwin.
She acted as both vocal coach and lyricist for the top 3 winners of Star Search Germany under contract with BMG/Universal Music. Susan has vocal coached and written lyrics for artists under contract with Polydor, Capitol, Sony/BMG, and Echo Verlag.
She attended the Buddy Baker/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop at NYU and was mentored by Mark Snow (The X-Files) and Sonny Kompanek (orchestrator for Carter Burwell).
Fluent in German, English, and Italian, she has conducted such prestigious orchestras as the Berliner Symphoniker, ensembles including members of the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Philharmonic, Babelsberger Filmorchester and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin, Italy.
Salvatore, born in Italy, is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso concert and jazz pianist whose composing skills range from classic Italian operatic to American big band and beyond. He holds a post-graduate degree in classical piano performance from The Royal School of London.
He studied film scoring and orchestration under Carlo Crivelli and was mentored by Maestro Ennio Morricone. Sal also studied jazz with Michel Camilo (faculty member of The Juilliard School) and be-bop legend Barry Harris.
Together, DiBona & Sangiovanni are able to express and execute a virtually unlimited range of musical styles and techniques, whether using MIDI, chamber ensemble or large symphonic orchestra. They orchestrate all their own compositions and have written many original songs especially for the films they’ve scored.
Greatly favored by European film music critics and fans, DiBona&Sangiovanni have recently been in competition for the Italian Golden Globes 2021 and David di Donatello 2021 for the French-Italian feature film, "I LIVIATANI” / “Bad Habits Die Hard”. The duo were nominated in 2017 by the prestigious, Milan-based Colonne Sonore magazine as Best Italian Composers and for Best Italian Film Music of 2016 for the Italian horror/giallo feature "The Transparent Woman", finding themselves honored to be among the ranks of Oscar winners John Williams, James Horner, Ennio Morricone and Alexandre Desplat.