Nora Orlandi

Nora Orlandi (28 June 1933 – 1 January 2025), also known as Joan Christian, was an Italian pianist, violinist, soprano vocalist, composer, and occasional actress.

Orlandi was the founder of I 4+4 di Nora Orlandi, a vocal ensamble active on television, radio and films, and that collaborated as chorus with notable artists such as Adriano Celentano, Mina, Gianni Morandi, Lucio Battisti, Lucio Dalla, Domenico Modugno, Mia Martini and Gino Paoli. As the first female film composer of Italian cinema, she composed scores for Spaghetti Westerns, Eurospy films and gialli throughout the 1960s and was best known for "Dies Irae", a short piece she wrote and performed for Sergio Martino's The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971) which was later reused in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004).

Her younger sister is the singer-songwriter Paola Orlandi.

Orlandi died from cardiac arrest in Rome on 1 January 2025, at the age of 91.