Latino doctor-turned-musician Franno, tells soul-touching stories through his music

From doctor to singer-songwriter, Franno, a new Latino emerging artist, shows that in life, one can have more than one passionate calling, all worthy of pursuit. 

While the Latin-pop, Italian-Chilean singer-songwriter has had a strong passion for music since he was a teenager, when he first picked up his guitar, his day job, for the majority of the time, has been in the ICU, working as a doctor, a profession he said has helped pay for his self-funded debut album. 

“This was a different way to keep healing the heart, but through music,” Frannno, who specializes in heart trauma in the ICU, said when asked about the similarities of being a doctor and launching his music career. 

Blending a love for classic Latin romance with contemporary nuances, his Spanish-language debut album, titled "Historia de Amor," was released Friday, May 16, a project that he and his team have worked on for about three years.  

“My concept as a musician is about connecting with emotions,” Franno told CALÒ News. “If I do something, I want to give it my all. I wanted to feel proud of what I'm doing and releasing it to the world. This is kind of one-shot and I want to do it right.”

The 11-track, 43-minute album, which he said was a love letter to music, fuels nostalgia, vulnerability and emotion-evoking lyrics. Produced by the renowned and multiple Grammy Award-winning Rafa Sardina, the album is centered around themes of love and connection. Some of the songs, Frannon said, he wrote as a teenager, and some more recently, all of which tell a story.

Sardina said the album took years to be finalized because it was being worked on in between breaks from Franno’s medical practices. “In a way, the project was fragmented, but in every single step of the way, there was always passion and commitment.” 

Love, whether lost love, love at first sight, troubled or euphoric love, remains the common theme of the album.  

“I bring love to poems and poems to music, music that I hope will touch people’s hearts,” he said. “The album talks about love, all types of love or stages of a relationship, things that all of us at some point in our lives can connect to or have gone through. There were moments in my life that inspired me deeply because of the emotion that I was feeling at that moment.”

His album is accompanied by a short documentary directed by Andres Ibañez Diaz Infante, known in the music industry as Stereo Sonico. “Franno shared with me his dream: to make a movie based on ten songs, part of his debut album,” Diaz Infante  wrote in a recent post. 

Last Thursday, CALÒ News was invited to a private screening of the short film and album debut party, where Frannon presented his album to Los Angeles, the city where the album was crafted and perfected. The short film, shot in Mexico City, tells a love story between two Latinos who fell in and out of love. “We shot for eight or nine days,” Stereo Sonico said on Thursday.

Like for many Latinos, family is very important for Franno. He told CALÒ News his family has been a driving force in his music career.  

According to Franno, his family was heavily involved and supportive in the creation of the album. “It was like making this project home,” he said. “I have an amazing family. We're not perfect, but they're with me and they have been with me and I have been with them in every single important step of each other's lives.”

"Historia de Amor" is now available on all digital platforms. 

To learn more about Franno, you can visit https://frannomusic.com.