Gaia Banfi

Gaia Banfi was born in Milan on 7 January 1998. Her father is Giuseppe Banfi, known as Baffo, keyboardist and co-founder of Biglietto per l’Inferno, a key group in Italian progressive rock and author of the 1974 self-titled album, the only LP released during the band’s original incarnation. After the group split, Baffo Banfi pursued a solo career in electronic and cosmic music, collaborating, among others, with Klaus Schulze. Gaia grew up in a house full of records and with a father who taught her to listen closely.

She began studying singing at the age of six, then moved on to classical guitar and violin. She graduated in Jazz Singing with top marks from the Conservatorio di Bologna under Diana Torto. In 2018, during a theatre evening in Milan in memory of Claudio Rocchi, father and daughter performed together: Gaia was still almost unknown to the public, the performance lasted only a few minutes, and it left the impression of a fully formed talent. In 2020 she released her debut album, Lotus.

Since 2022 she has worked with the producer AKA5HA, deepening the electronic and experimental component of her music. In 2023 she took part in X Factor, bringing to the stage what Rolling Stone Italia described as a “parallel musical world”. Around the same period she opened Daniela Pes’s Italian concerts and performed at festivals such as Reset in Turin and Efesto House in Bologna.

On 4 April 2025 she released La Maccaia on Trovarobato: the title refers to a typically Ligurian weather phenomenon, a dense haze that forms when the sirocco blows and settles between sea and sky. The record brings together Italian songwriting, electronics and vocal experimentation with unusual naturalness on the Italian scene. It was received as one of the most relevant Italian works of the season. Trans Musicales in Rennes and Eurosonic in Groningen followed, among the first European steps in a career now gathering speed.