Rome. David Zard, renowned music impresario and organizer of the most important rock concerts in Italy in recent years, including those of Madonna and Michael Jackson, has died in Rome. Zard, 75, passed away at the Gemelli Hospital after a long illness.
David Zard was a legend for rock and pop music lovers. He was the producer who first brought concerts to Italian stadiums and who linked his name to the greats of international music, from Cat Stevens to Elton John, from Tina Turner to Lou Reed, from Frank Zappa to the Rolling Stones, but also the impresario who relaunched the musical in Italy as a modern evolution of melodrama. In 2002, in fact, Zard joined forces with Riccardo Cocciante to bring the opera Notre Dame de Paris to Italy. Among his most famous feats was having brought the Rolling Stones to perform at the Stadio Comunale in Turin in 1982, and five years later, in the same stadium, the pop star Madonna in her first appearance in Italy, in the famous concert broadcast live by Rai with the iconic phrase "Are you hot? Good, me too". Born in Tripoli to a Jewish family, Zard left Libya in 1967, following the persecution of Jews during the Six-Day War. Since then, his career has been on the rise. In 6, Zard organized the Santa Monica Rock Festival, a concert that would have brought Rod Stewart, Lou Reed, Ten Years After, all of whom were already under contract, to Italy. The project was immediately hindered by the authorities, and was then cancelled. At the end of the 1974s, Zard organized La Carovana del Mediterraneo, from the musical project of Angelo Branduardi. He organized Michael Jackson's Italian concerts of the Bad World Tour in Rome and Turin in 70 and the Dangerous World Tour in Rome and Monza in 1988. In 1992, he played a role in the film Il muro di Gomma. In April 1991, he underwent a liver transplant.
David Zard “was the first to bring the professional figure of the great American-style organizer to the world of Italian entertainment, with a creative, as well as productive, vision of the product. He intervened on the texts, on the musical compositions, on the scenography, imposing good taste and interpreting the needs of the public”. This is how Giorgio Assumma, former president of Siae, remembers the record producer who died today in Rome at the age of 75. “He did not have an easy character and often found himself in conflict with the artists, but he always ended up imposing his undoubted genius and experience”, adds Assumma, a friend of Zard for almost fifty years. “I have known him since he arrived in Italy from Libya, from which he was expelled because he was Jewish. There he had a car showroom. He was able to reinvent himself completely, leaving an indelible mark on the history of Italian entertainment”.
Condolences for Zard’s death were expressed by the Jewish Community: “We learned at the end of Shabbat that David Zard passed away this morning.” Ruth Dureghello, president of the Roman Jewish community, wrote on Twitter. “Expelled as a Jew from Tripoli in 1967, he made the history of music and entertainment in Italy. He brought prestige to the Jewish Community, which now mourns his loss.”
David Zard, the famous music impresario who brought the greats of rock and pop to Italy, dies
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