Sanremo Music Festival 1961
Italian song contest (11th edition)

The Sanremo Music Festival 1961 (Italian: Festival di Sanremo 1961), officially the 11th Italian Song Festival (11º Festival della canzone italiana), was the eleventh annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo between 26 January and 6 February 1961, and broadcast by Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI). The show was presented by Lilli Lembo and Giuliana Calandra for the first three nights, while Alberto Lionello replaced Calandra in the final night. Ezio Radaelli served as artistic director.
According to the rules of this edition every song was performed in a double performance by a couple of singers or groups. The winners of the festival were Luciano Tajoli and Betty Curtis with the song "Al di là". Curtis went on to perform the song for Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1961.
Participants and results
Broadcasts
Local broadcast
All shows were broadcast on Italian Television and Secondo Programma, beginning at 22:00 CET (21:00 UTC).
International broadcast
Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sanremo Music Festival 1961” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.