La Venezia dei Batisto Coco

BATISTO COCO, a historic musical group from Venice, has spent the last 40 years championing a unique musical project performed in the Venetian dialect.

The defining feature of their lyrics is how they craft an original sociological portrait of the city, laced with that sharp, ironic wit so typical of Venice.
They tell stories and events that are mostly fictional, yet seamlessly mirror the everyday life of a truly special city that is unique in the world.

Founded in 1985, the Batisto Coco Orchestra had the brilliant intuition to marry the Venetian dialect with salsa, mambo, and cha-cha-cha. The choice to sing in dialect is not out of provincialism, but rather an artistic decision: the accent and cadence of the lagoon’s idiom naturally blend with the syncopated rhythms of Latin American music. In short, “South American becomes Venetian.”

Driven by this concept, they contaminate the dialect with Spanish, venturing into translations that are not just linguistic, but deeply cultural. Through this process, a musical magic unfolds, creating a dialogue between two distant universes.

Throughout their forty-year career, Batisto Coco has built a rich body of work. They unearth rare idioms still alive in the collective memory, highlight specific traits of the Venetian identity, and tell stories ranging from local bàcari (taverns) being sold to Chinese entrepreneurs to the never-ending saga of the MOSE flood barriers. They have even grafted salsa music onto 20th-century classical and Baroque music.

Through their live shows, they pay homage to Venice’s sixteen centuries of history (a classic love-hate relationship)—an age the Serenissima still carries with grace and elegance, despite everything.