Aldo
Franco
Arabic
Singer


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Aldo Leaning

 
Aldo ...a background look
Yalla - CD Cover

Background

Born In Perth, Western Australia, Aldo was born of European parents. His father immigrate to Australia from Italy and his mother (who also immigrated to Australia at around the same time) immigrated from Germany in the early nineteen fifties. From early in life Aldo was into music from playing instruments such as the piano accordion and guitar through to learning to sing at school. It was during his teenage years that Aldo discovered his love for singing and performing working with local hometown bands , a school rock and roll band called 'Nautilus' and the Italian cabaret band such as the 'Diablos' and 'i Rivali'. Music was always a big influence in life. Aldo's father was a notable operatic baritone who was once offered a place in the famous La Scala Opera Company of Milan. Aldo too therefore naturally became interested in opera. In his late teenage years he joined the Western Australian Opera Company under the then director Gerald Krug. At the same time he took opera singing lessons to help further develop his vocal ability. This lead him to perform in many different arenas including on stage operas and ultimately would lead to his Middle-Eastern success.

The Arabic Connection

In 1984, Aldo married to Egyptian born Bernadette. So began his Middle-Eastern connection. As a performer Aldo performed in many community related events, He made many friends and contacts in this period and many inroads into the local Arabic migrant communities in Australia. As a consequence of some of these contacts Aldo got involved with (and ultimately took control of) the local Arabic language broadcaster 'Arabic Radio' in the late 1980's. The success of the Arabic Radio programmes surprised many but no one more than Aldo who initially spoke no Arabic but still managed to coordinate and bring the shows together. The Franco-Arabic influence became evident at that point and his career began to navigate in a a whole new direction. The success of the 'Arabic Radio' programme has been credited largely due the the popularity it gained through bridging the gap between the migrated Arabic population and their New Australian offspring who were attracted by the Western influence into a normally very traditional and rigid Arabic media form. This was the influence known throughout the Arabic world as Franco Araby - Franco Arabic.

Arabic Song

It was during the period that Aldo was with Arabic Radio ) in Western Australia that he was invited to sing at an Arabic community function. He happily accepted but had second thoughts when he was asked to sing at least one song in Arabic. After some coaxing from friend an future musical collaborator Richard Elhaj, he accepted the challenge and performed the song 'Mayal' by Amr Diab, one of Egypt s leading pop stars. While he could not speak Arabic at the time, he was coached into learning the song 'parrot fashion' by his friends, family and colleagues. The show was a hit and lead to offers to make a demo recording of some material that was in secret written for him as a result of the performance. Clearly having enjoyed the demo experience, Aldo went on to record further material with the support of lyric and music writers from the local community who also assisted in the creation process for his early material. In 1995 Aldo received offers from two record companies in the Middle East to join their labels, one in Egypt and one in Saudi Arabia. Aldo decided to accept the proposal from Music Master of Saudi Arabia, a decision he was to say later was perhaps a hasty one due to his fondness for Egypt, its people and culture.

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