We had the good fortune of connecting with Luiza Girardello and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Luiza, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I spent a long time hesitating about becoming a full-time musician. There’s this concept from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way in which she talks about “shadow artists”, which would be people who want to be artists, but who can’t fully commit to their creativity taking whatever form it needs to, so they end up putting their creative energy towards other artistic endeavors, but not quite what they want. I really relate to that. I always wanted to write and perform my own songs, but that felt really scary. So I sang other people’s songs, worked with photography for a long time, produced some music for other people, etc. All of these things were fun, but in my case, at the time, were coming from a space of avoiding what I really wanted. And that all changed when I found out I had cancer at 23 years old.

The experience of confronting my own mortality made it so that I had nothing left to lose. And I could finally answer the question “what would I do if I knew this was my last day on earth” truthfully. So I wrote my first song in between chemotherapy sessions.

That was 10 years ago, I am fully recovered and there’s a been a lot of back and forward in my life when it comes to expression and creativity. But it’s come to the point where I’m grateful for the experience, as bad as it was, because it threw me into the path that I really wanted to embrace, but was too scared to commit to.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I try to write the music that is the most true to myself at the moment. So far, that has manifested in alternative rock that blends with jazz and Brazilian music. A lot of my lyrics come from a place of vulnerability and confronting parts of myself I’m not the most comfortable with, and so far a lot of that looks like songs about mental health and dysfunctional relationships, although of course there are also some lighter love songs in the mix.

I left my hometown (Porto Alegre, Brazil) to study in the US, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Rebuilding community in a new place was really tough, but I’m happy to say that I’ve met a ton of amazing people along the way, and the sense of exchanging and connecting is one of the things that moves me the most. Building things together and creating things that are bigger than the sum of their parts is what I always looked for in music.

It took me a long time to be able to start releasing my original music. I started doing it last year, and I can’t wait to release more! I have some more singles planned for this year, followed by a full album pretty soon.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There are so many people that I need to thank, and I’d like to think that most of them have been thanked profusely in person. But the person who comes to mind right away is a professor I had during my time at Berklee College of Music. My voice teacher, Clare McLeod, helped me develop my craft in a way I hadn’t known was possible, even after spending most of my life studying singing before I met her. I should also thank her for her influence as a teacher myself, She’s responsible for starting one of the programs I minored in at Berklee, the Teaching Contemporary Voice minor. The way in which voice has been taught has been, in many institutions, stuck in old, not-so-helpful ways. And what Clare has put together for this minor is a really comprehensive view of vocal pedagogy, giving students an overview many new teaching methods available. When academic excellence meets just an overall amazing person, it’s hard to go wrong.

Website: www.luizagirardello.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luiza_girardello

Twitter: https://x.com/luizagmusic

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/luizagirardellomusic

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@luiza_girardello

Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1jbpNWyK6MOyNIgW2aA8ed?si=9f6Bx3EHQECF7oKACBPXjA Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/luiza-girardello/1436530618 Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luiza_girardello

Image Credits
Chris Beyer, Luiza Girardello, E. Roman

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