The Miami leg of the 2025 edition of Hit Week, the international festival that since 2009 has promoted Italian pop, rock, and singer-songwriter music abroad, kicks off on Friday, October 17. This year’s edition places particular emphasis on the dialogue between music and cinema, further strengthening the festival’s role as a platform for encounters between different expressions of Italian creativity.
Organized by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry (FIMI) and the Italian Trade Agency (ICE) through its Los Angeles office, Hit Week has reached numerous countries and several U.S. cities. Since 2022, the festival has adopted a recurring format with two annual appointments in Miami and Los Angeles. In 2024, it launched a collaboration with the newly established Italian Cultural Institute of Miami, thus consolidating its ties with the local territory and cultural institutions.
The opening night is co-organized with the Italian Cultural Institute of Miami. Beginning at 6:00 p.m., the evening comes alive with a public performance by singer-songwriter Joan Thiele. Winner of a David di Donatello for the song Proiettili (performed together with Elodie and co-written with Elodie, Elisa and Emanuele Triglia for the soundtrack of the movie Ti mangio il cuore), Joan also performed among the headliners at the most recent Sanremo Festival with her song Eco. In Miami, she will present a semi-acoustic set featuring tracks from her latest album, a sound journey that reinterprets influences from Italian cinema, drawing on the works of Piero Umiliani, a master of film soundtracks in the 1960s and 1970s.
At 7:00 p.m., the evening continues with “Italo Soundtracks DJ Set & More” by Luca De Gennaro, Italian DJ, music critic, and radio host. Active since the early days of private radio stations and later with Radio Rai, Radio Capital, and MTV, De Gennaro has opened concerts for international stars such as U2 and Eminem, as well as major Italian artists including Vasco Rossi, Ligabue, and Negramaro. He has served as a member of the artistic committee and quality jury of the Sanremo Festival, published numerous books on music, and curated the Milano Music Week.
The Miami program will culminate on Saturday, October 18, with a concert at the Miami Beach Bandshell arena.