MANY OF YOU HAVE ASKED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ME, SO I TOOK AN INTERVIEW I DID FOR A LOCAL PAPER AND EXPANDED ON IT.

Favorite Music: A difficult question. While my tastes are varied they are also very specific. I love opera and classical but only bel canto: Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Mascagni etc. Of course for classical I listen to Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Rachmannaoff, Chopin, Beethoven. When it comes to rock and pop music I have eclectic tastes - I was an 80's 90's kid so I have a certain nostalgia for new wave and 80's fare. R.E.M., Boy George, U2, Simple Minds, Eurythmics, Peter Gabriel, Sade, etc. Listening to Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin any of the legends - all their discs are in my collection.

Of course there are finally some good new singer songwriters. The top of my list is my dear friend Josh Joplin, whose music and lyrics are very much in sync with my own writing and personality. Annie Lennox (old and new), David Gray and Pete Yorn are also among the small new group of artists that move me and I feel are worth spending your money on.

Now for those of you who do not know Italian singers there are: Riccardo Cocciante, Lucio Battisti, Gianna Nannini, Mina, Paola Turci, occasionally Raf, Giorgia, and Eros rock too!

Favorite City: Rome. While New York is more my home - everyone who knows me knows that my mind and heart are almost always there.

Favorite Place: I am a traveler so it is hard to say. I have traveled all over Italy and have many spots which I adore. I also plan people's vacations in Italy - Grossetto, Siena, San Gimignano, Viterbo, Lago di Bolsena, Volterra, Assisi, Gubbio, Vietri, San Felice Circeo and my family's home place of Metaponto. I love Ireland! Dublin is a magical city like Roma! London is wonderful too (love Hampstead). Puerto Rico and Mexico are amazing countries, rich in culture and mystery too!

Sun Sign: Gemini (but Virgo moon and Virgo rising).

Poets: Dante, Cesare Pavese, Robert Frost, John Keats, Pablo Neruda,William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound, Hart Crane.

Playwrights: Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Anton Chekov, Eduardo DeFilippo, Eugene O'Neill, Luigi Pirandello.

Favorite Novelists/Authors: Virginia Woolf, Alberto Moravia, William Faulkner, George Orwell, Italo Calvino, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Directors / Filmmakers: DeSica, Fellini,Visconti, Paoslini, Wertmuller, Rossellini, Scola, Bertolucci, Tornatore, and now Giordani, Salvatores, Muccino, and Ozpetek. Of course Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, Wilder, Wyler, Cukor, Welles, Hitchock, Bogdanovich, Lumet, Neil Jordan, Jim Sheriden, Bill Condon, Mike Leigh and Stephen Daldry and also Sofia Coppola. While I was profoundly moved by Mel Gibson's astoundingly powerful "The Passion of The Christ" his other films are not quite my speed.

Interests: Cooking (anyone who knows me has tasted my food!), Reading voraciously, Food and wine, Traveling, Film (in particular classic American and Italian cinema), Philosophy, Ancient History, and Art and Art History.

Other information: Graduated from prestigious IONA Preparatory School in New Rochelle New York. He attended college in both the U.S. and Italy.

At various points in his life a champion swimmer and diver, and an All County and All City football player.

A published poet.

He holds a certificate in filmmaking from NYU, a Master's Degree in English Literature Education from Fordham University at Lincoln Center. He teaches and enjoys sharing is passion for writing and theater.

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Contact (Professional Matters): franco@francodalessandro.com