Giorgia Fumanti

Giorgia Fumanti grew up Aulla, a city north of Tuscany that stands at the crossroads of Italian history. Though tourists pass through to visit the region's famed castle Fortezza della Brunella, for Giorgia, Aulla was a small town that bred big ambitions. Her parents hoped Giorgia might become a lawyer or go into the family mercantile business. But it was not to be. Beginning in childhood, when her grandmother would sing her lullabies, music pierced Giorgia's heart.

However, it wasn't until her mid-teens, when she was invited to join the church choir that she had any inkling she could sing. "I was shy as a teenager", she recalls. "But in the choir on that first day, I opened my mouth and out came this soprano voice, totally without self-consciousness. Everyone was in shock. Within three months I had become the soloist in the Christmas concert".