A journalist for La Repubblica since the newspaper was founded in 1976, Gino Castaldo has interviewed all the major musical giants—from Bob Dylan to Paul McCartney, Lou Reed to Bruce Springsteen. In addition to editing the La Repubblica supplement Musica!, he has curated numerous editorial initiatives for Gruppo Espresso, including recording series such as “The History of Jazz and the America of Rock”. From 2011 to 2017, he hosted “Playlist on Radio Capital” with Ernesto Assante as well as producing music programs on Radio Tre and leading important musical storytelling series, including live programs under the title “Let’s Play.” He has also hosted the radio program “Back2back” with DJ Ema Stokholma since 2018.

In 2021, he led ten episodes of Magazzini Musicali on Rai2. His most recent books include Il romanzo della canzone italiana [The Novel of Italian Music] (Einaudi, 2018), Lucio Dalla (Mondadori, 2021) written with Ernesto Assante, and in 2023 he published Il cielo bruciava di stelle. La stagione magica dei cantautori italiani [The Sky Burned with Stars. The Wonder Years of Italy’s Top Singer-Songwriters] (Mondadori).

For over ten years he has taken his musical storytelling to Italy’s most beautiful piazzas and theaters, recounting the history of Italian and international music in an alternation of words and music.