Jonathan Cilia Faro chatted about the new acoustic version of “Amapola,” where he collaborates with Jesus Molina.
How did the acoustic version of “Amapola” come about?
Jesus Molina and I did four concerts in Italy and during these concerts we performed “Amapola” and after four standing ovations in four different cities we decided this will be a romantic song in my Romantic Album.
What inspires your music and songwriting?
My life, where I come from, Sicily on the Mediterranean Sea. There are memories that keep inspiring my life in unique ways. I observe people and I feel the nature that surrounds me.
This is why-city people (those that grow up on concrete) don’t get my music immediately. There is a disconnect from the real world, but this is my calling to reconnect them with the world around them through my music.
What do your plans for the future include?
I see myself touring the world and doing what I love to do, concerts just piano and voice, promoting my music and my interpretation of my songs. I see my wife and I getting older together, enjoying this wonderful world. I spent 42 years of my life to finally understand what I want to be and I want to be happy.
What is your advice for young and aspiring artists and pianists?
Focus to be the best of your craft, try to seek quality and not fast success. Eventually success will come if you have a good product. Do what you feel inside your heart and don’t follow what the “music industry“ sells because they only care about money and not about the real art.
The most successful artists survived the test of time because their music became immortal. Look at Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Puccini and many others.
How does it feel to be artists in the digital age? (now with streaming, technology, and social media being so prevalent)
Horrible, I grew up with real music played on cassette, CD and Vinyl. Digital music can become a boomerang, one day it can backfire in our face, it can’t be controlled, it’s not a measure it’s just clicks.
I will stick with my horse and buggy, eventually one day I will benefit from my vintage ways of doing business. You can’t listen to digital music without being interrupted by a text or a phone call or a notification, people are depressed because social media keeps making them feel unhappy.
So, at the end, better be vintage with some digital presence than totally digital…
What does the word success mean to you?
My best achievement is knowing all my major clients and have conversations with my fans. Many artists treat their own fans like numbers, they don’t care, they believe the world owes them respect only because they are number one on some list.
I never understood this, I want to have a friendly relationship whit my audience. I like to be there with them.
If I don’t respect my audience sooner or later, I will lose everything. I produce whatever I want with whoever I want … my Career is not attached to the shadow of other artists. I can be myself; this is a success.
I’m not a cover band artist keeping alive a dead person, I’m Jonathan Cilia Faro and I sing for personal pleasure, and I sing to make people feel the freedom I earned many years ago.
What would you like to tell our readers about the acoustic version of “Amapola”? What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it?
This version of “Amapola” is the first time in history that a Latino Song gets interpreted and recorded in an Opera Jazz version. The elegance of Jesus Molina on the piano with the power of Jonathan Cilia Faro’s voice.
I want people falling in love and I would like to remind people of a time when not so long-ago life was simpler, there is too much noise out there… we need to find peace and this is what we did with Jesus Molina, we recorded a peaceful love song.
To learn more about Jonathan Cilia Faro, follow him on Instagram and check out his official website.