Richard Cocciante was born in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1946. Brought up by an Italian father and a French mother, he was taken to France at an early age and grew up speaking his mother’s native tongue. At the age of eleven, the young boy had his first contact with his father’s roots when the family settled in Rome. Richard not only had to pick up Italian, but also had to adapt to a totally new lifestyle. Luckily, his new-found passion, music, was to help him through this difficult period.

In his teenage years Richard Cocciante developed an interest in opera and classical music. It was around this time that he also began discovering his own voice, and experimenting with the possibilities of his deep, gravelly timbre. One of his friends at the French 'lycée' in Rome encouraged him to form his own group and Richard soon became the proud leader of "The Nations". Meanwhile, the talented youngster was also teaching himself to play piano in his spare time. His interest in classical music remained strong, but the young singer/musician also discovered two major new influences : the blues and the Beatles.

After various experimentations with different groups, Richard Cocciante finally got to work on his début solo album "Mu". This album, originally recorded in Italian in 1972, was soon adapted for the French market. "Mu" proved a great success with the critics, and the music world began to take an interest in the talented newcomer. A second album, "Poesia", followed in 1973, but it was the release of the single "Belle senz’anima" in 1974 which really rocketed Richard Cocciante to fame in Italy then Spain. The hit single, taken from the album "Anima" was arranged by the renowned Italian composer Ennio Morricone, internationally famous for his film scores.

Richard Cocciante’s success in France dates back to 1978, when "Marguerite", the French version of his Italian hit "Margherita", was released. The powerful musical arrangements on the original Italian version (taken from the album "Concerto per Margherita") were the work of another famous film score composer, Vangelis.

In 1979 Richard Cocciante’s fateful encounter with Jean Paul Dreau led to another immensely successful single, "Coup de soleil".

1983 - Cocciante records his album "Sincerita" in four different languages

In 1983 Cocciante’s career took a new turn when he signed with the Virgin label and flew to Los Angeles to record a new album, Sincerita". The album was recorded in no less than four languages (Italian, English, Spanish and French, the lyrics for the French version written by the renowned French songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil). Following the release of "Sincerita", Cocciante embarked upon a major tour of Italy which proved a great success with his Italian fans. Indeed, 40,000 people flocked to see the singer when he performed a concert in the Place des Seigneurs in Florence in 1984. The following year Cocciante was back in the charts again, this time with a duet, "Question de feeling". The Italian version was recorded with the Italian star Mina, the French version with Fabienne Thibeault.

1985 also saw the release of Richard Cocciante’s new album "Il mare dei Papaveri". The following year the singer was back in the media spotlight with yet another hit, this time a live version of "Quando si vuole bene", and another sell-out tour.

In 1987 Cocciante wrote and performed "Il mio refugio", the theme tune for French director Patrice Lecomte’s film "Tandem". The following year he was back in the studio, this time in London, putting the final touches to a new album, "La grande Avventura".

The Italian singer had grown increasingly popular in South America, fans rushing out to the shops to buy each new album within weeks of its release. Hence, between 1989 and 1992, Cocciante moved to Miami, in the United States, then embarked upon a major tour of Latin America.

Cocciante had always refused to get involved with the San Remo Festival (the major event in the Italian music calendar, and a guaranteed boost of album sales). But in 1991 he finally agreed to appear - and walked off with the top award for his song "Se stiamo insieme" (taken from the album "Cocciante").

Cocciante launches an acting career, playing the role of Chopin

That same year Cocciante also launched an acting career, when Catherine Lara cast him in the role of Chopin in her film "Sand et les romantiques".

1993 saw the release of two new albums, "Empreinte" (a welcome return to the French music scene after a seven-year absence) and "Eventi e mutamenti".

In May 1994, with more than twenty years’ career behind him, the time was ripe for Richard Cocciante’s Greatest Hits compilation. This album proved an instant hit with fans worldwide, selling 350,000 copies. Following this international success, Cocciante continued to zoom across frontiers and time zones. While delighting fans in Italy, he still found time to perform a special opening night concert at the "Vina del Mar" festival in Chile. Cocciante then went on to give an unforgettable performance at the "Francofolies" festival, held in La Rochelle, France, where he took to the stage with Quebec-born singer Daniel Lavoie and brought the house down with a duet of the song "Ils s’aiment". He also took part in the special "Francofolies" evening which paid tribute to the work of Québecois songwriter Luc Plamondon.

The release of "Un uomo felice", Cocciante’s new album recorded in Italian, coincided with a series of concerts in Rome which delighted Italian music fans during an entire week. In November 94 it was the turn of French fans, who turned out in force to welcome Cocciante when he performed at the Zénith in Paris. Following his French success, the singer embarked upon a European tour then performed a series of concerts in Canada.

Cocciante teams up with Canadian songwriter Luc Plamondon

Cocciante’s last French album, "l'Instant présent" (released in 1995), was the result of a fruitful collaboration with the Québecois songwriter Luc Plamondon. (Cocciante was given an outstanding welcome when he performed extracts from this album at the prestigious Olympia music hall in Paris on 8, 9 and 10 February 1996).

Cocciante and Plamondon's friendship and working partnership goes back a long way. And the pair soon teamed up together once again to work on an ambitious new project, writing a musical inspired by Victor Hugo’s famous novel "Notre Dame de Paris". Plamondon looked after the lyrics for "Notre-Dame de Paris", while Cocciante wrote the music and the pair presented extracts from their musical at the MIDEM Festival 98 (the international record industry fair held in Cannes). Cocciante and Plamondon gathered together an impressive cast for the album of their musical, including the Quebecois singer Daniel Lavoie and the Israeli star Noa (who was replaced in the stage version of the musical by the young French singer Hélène Ségara). The stage version of "Notre-Dame de Paris" premièred at the Palais des Congrès in Paris on 16 September 1998 and soon proved to be a huge success. Tickets for the musical are currently selling like hotcakes and the album "Notre-Dame de Paris" has also become a major hit (indeed, by the time "Notre-Dame de Paris" reached the stage over 1 million copies of the album had already been sold!)

"Notre-Dame de Paris" went on to enjoy a hugely successful national tour. So it came as no surprise to anyone when Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon triumphed at the 'Victoires de la Musique' awards in February 99, carrying off the awards for Best Musical and Best Single of the Year (for the song "Belle"). Following Notre-Dame de Paris's phenomenal success with French-speaking audiences, Cocciante and Plamondon announced that they intended to start work on an English adaptation of the musical in collaboration with the American songwriter Will Jennings (who penned the lyrics of Céline Dion's smash hit from "Titanic").

The tremendous international success experienced by "Notre Dame", which is constantly translated (English, Italian, Spanish, etc.) and produced in a new country, brought some tension within the Cocciante-Plamondon partnership-- the former grudging the latter’s media popularity. The animosity climaxed at the premiere of "Notre Dame" in Spain. Despite his huge public backup in Spain, Cocciante refused to attend the show, publicly showing his disagreement with his former partner. What’s more, the singer-song-writer had come to Barcelona a few weeks before in order to promote his new show.

Richard Cocciante who had not been resting on his laurels since the huge success of "Notre Dame", had already started to work on a new project—a musical based on Saint Exupery’s "Petit Prince". Coociante wrote the score while Elisabeth Anais penned the lyrics. Daniel Lavoie who played Frollo in "Notre-Dame" is expected to be the narrator of the show.

Cocciante’s new musical was staged at Le Petit Casino, in Paris, where it premièred on 2 October 2002. While “Le Petit Prince” was much less of a box-office smash than "Notre-Dame", the musical did attract a loyal following of fans and did well when released as a DVD in the run-up to Christmas. Later that year, Cocciante was honoured by the Italian president Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who presented the French-Italian singer and composer with the prestigious "Grande Ufficiale de la Repubblica Italiana."

2005: "Songs"

On 18 October 2005,  Cocciante – who had moved to Ireland by this point – released a new album, simply entitled "Songs." The album, featuring sixteen tracks recorded in English, French and Italian, drew on the same soaring melodies that had brought him to fame. A few months later, the album was followed by "Tous mes rêves", a boxed three-CD compilation, released by Sony BMG, bringing together all the French Italian star’s hits for the first time.

By the time his compilation hit record stores, Cocciante was already hard at work on a new project, the mega-production of "Roméo et Juliette", due to have its world première in the Roman amphitheatre in Verona on 1 June 2007. Public excitement is already mounting and tickets to the show have sold out months in advance. 

Meanwhile, back in France, Cocciante was involved in legal wrangles with the Inland Revenue service. In March 2006, the singer was given a 30-year prison sentence (with possibility of parole after ten years) and ordered to pay a significant fine for tax evasion. He appealed and while waiting for the courts to bring a final verdict, he embarked upon an extensive summer tour, performing in all the major Italian towns (6 July to 29 August 2006). Cocciante announced that this would be his final singing tour, saying that from now on he wished to devote all his time and energy to his composing career.

August 2006

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