Farewell to Ernesto Assante, a brilliant artist who knew how to describe music

The journalist Ernesto Assante, one of the best-known Italian music critics, radio and television author and presenter, has died at the age of 66. Last night he suffered a sudden illness and was admitted to the Umberto I Polyclinic in Rome, where he died late in the afternoon. My colleague Riccardo Luna confirmed the news of the disappearance on the websites of “The Republic” And “The imprint“. “Ernesto Assante is dead, we just can’t say it. We can say “this is life, Ernesto Assante” because he was made of the same stuff that life is made of. It was made up of projects, intuitions, dreams. Sometimes I thought that inside his big fragile heart he kept a continuous generator of dreams”, writes Luna. Born in Naples on February 12, 1958, Assante began his career in 1977 collaborating with the “Quotidiano dei Lavoratori “. In 1978 he joined “Il manifesto”, with which he collaborated until 1984. In 1979 he also began writing for “Republic», where he was music critic, editor-in-chief and finally correspondent. He was director of McLink and Kataweb and contributor to the Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani for entries concerning popular music. He has written for many other publications including “Epoca”, “L'Espresso”, “Rolling Stone”. Music was at the center of his writing. It was also recently sent to the last edition of the Sanremo Festival. Numerous tweets, from colleagues and others, recall his extraordinary work.

(on the cover Neri Marcorè, Ernesto Assante and Serena Rossi during the first episode of “Celebration” broadcast on Raiuno, Rome on October 14, 2017. FABIO FRUSTACI/ANSA)

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