For over twenty years he lived as a child and then a boy invisible to the world due to his neurodiversity, but then music made him a… MagoS. This is the stage name he chose Simone Maghernino26 years old, who performs tonight on the Ariston stage together with the choir born inside theAnffas (association of families and people with intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders) of La Speziabut which also involved other realities.
But how did Simone, who lives in San Severo (Foggia), end up in a choir in La Spezia and from there on the Ariston stage? Mom tells us about it, Luisa Sordillo, who we met in Sanremo while the boys were busy rehearsing before the performance.
Simone has a twin, Davide, who works in Rome in the field of tax law, and a younger brother, Francesco, a law student. Simone’s mother has also always worked as a lawyer, but for years she has dedicated herself full time to Simone and has also changed her own life to be able to support her son’s path.
«The diagnosis of autism came when Simone was already going to school. He is verbal, with a good cognitive level, and therefore it was not so easy, when he was little, to understand his neurodiversity. And even after that he didn’t find the right support to develop his skills. Above all, Simone didn’t have relationships and friends, not because he didn’t want them, but because he didn’t have the tools to make his particularity accepted. So he was isolated, a ghost in fact. Until I realized that while surfing YouTube he was humming to himself the songs that he learned very quickly. And it seemed right to me too. So, I who have always loved writing, composed a song for him, and asked his gym trainer, who is also a singer-songwriter, to set it to music. Thus his first song, Ali in Pocket, was born and the video soon went viral.
So I wrote another one, and another one…
Until, with eight songs, his first album was born, which is entitled Authentic mind. Because his, as he himself likes to say, is not autistic music but authentic music.
«Simone began to be invited on television programmes, he performed in the square in San Severo with a group of children, and received an award from our city. He was then invited by the La Spezia choir to perform with other children with intellectual disabilities on several occasions, including the Special Festival, at the Teatro Civico La Spezia, where the choir was joined for the occasion by professional singers, including Jalisse and Righeira».
With one of them, Samuele Cavallo, actor of A place in the sun and came second to Such and Such ShowSimone then recorded a song in Naples, We are friends.
«All this has radically changed Simone’s life: it is as if by gaining visibility in the eyes of others he was born a second time. Now her days are full, she studies piano, takes singing lessons, takes a ceramics course and above all she has a group of friends with whom she goes out. He is no longer a ghost, he is a person, a wonderful person who makes himself known and appreciated for who he is without the need to hide anymore».
«The message I want to send by telling my son’s story», concludes Luisa Sordillo with tears of emotion, «is that everyone should have the freedom to be themselves, discover and cultivate their dreams. And among Simone’s is being able to meet and perhaps sing with his idol, Nek.”
And this is also what the performance in Sanremo in front of millions of people wants to make clear: that everyone has the right to be recognized in their own singularitywithout stopping at labels and therefore also broadening our vision of the world, truly inclusive and non-exclusive.”
