Italians love music as much as they love football and food, and every year, the nation gathers around their TV screens to listen, and vote on, their favorite new singers in the long-running Sanremo Music Festival.

The much-loved song competition kicked off Tuesday in Sanremo, the seaside town in the northwestern Liguria region where the festival first took place in 1951.

Singer-songwriter Claudio Baglioni is the artistic director of this year's edition, which sees 24 performers vie for a single prize to be awarded at the end of the five-day competition, which is aired as every year live on RAI public broadcaster, usually to massive audience ratings.

This year's line up of performers and guests includes opera tenor Andrea Bocelli, who made his debut at Sanremo in 1994, his son Matteo, also a singer, rocker Loredana Berte, singers Paola Turci and Patty Pravo, pop star Eros Ramazzotti, and a number of emerging artists hoping to make their breakthrough.

Also gracing the stage at Sanremo's Ariston Theater will be award-winning actors and performers including Pierfrancesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria, Valeria Golino and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Sanremo Music Festival also invited famous foreign guests to perform alongside Italy's established and aspiring stars.

These have included Canadian pop star Paul Anka and swing teen idol Frankie Avalon, as well as seminal English rock band The Yardbirds, which launched the careers of three of rock's most famous guitarists: Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page.

This year's winner, chosen by the public in combination with three different juries -- one made up of journalists, one of prominent artists and pundits, and one based on a survey of music consumers -- will represent Italy at the 64th Eurovision Song Contest which will be held in May in Tel Aviv, organizers said.

The festival now in its 69th edition continues through February 9. 

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