" My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive, and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style."
MAYA ANGELOU
Born and raised in Sicily, in a family full of artist, Paola learnt to paint and sing even before she was able to write.
At 10 she started her musical life, becoming part of the children’s choir in one of the main theaters in Italy, Teatro Massimo of Palermo.
After 8 year spent singing Puccini and Bizet, Mozart and Britten, she was forced to stop.
Then, life gave her a second chance.
After two bachelor degrees in psychopedagogy and education, two specializations in teaching methods for children with special needs and a post graduate course in Languages Teaching Methods, she decided to make her dreams into plans and to follow the music call.
She started studying again with a shiny star from Sicily, Anita Vitale, and after a few years at the Palermo Jazz International School, surrounded by great musician from all around the world, she met Joey Blake and fell in love with circle singing, so she decided to audition to Berklee College of Music and start her journey as a professional singer.
Her Berklee journey started in the Fall 2014 and it has been a pretty unique one. Went to Boston to audition, with a dream: she wanted to realize her music therapy project, based on the therapeutic power of circle singing.
She was scared.
She was 32, not exactly a "freshman", and she was taking a sabbatical to be there, risking a lot: indeed she had a lifelong term job in Italy, very rare there nowadays. She started teaching 10 years before, but her "music nature" was missing.
During her very first day at Berklee, the President Roger Brown during his speech to the new students said something that changed her perspective on life
"You are here to be who you are!"
In that very moment she felt in the right place at the right time.
Plus, he was right. In a few weeks she was discovering her abilities as a songwriter, started writing songs, got into the Music Therapy program.
She is now graduated, after going back home for a couple of years, but never loosing hope and focus. She has had the honor of being part of amazing shows with the Berklee Indian Ensemble, the Balkan Choir and the Gospel Choir, with the Circle Song Choir, and she performed on wonderful stages: at the Saint John Cathedral in New York, directed by Paul Winter and in Boston at the BSO, the NEC, and all the Berklee ones, of course.
Since her second semester on campus her focus has been her circle songs original project, "The Lotus Sound".
She is an Artist Diploma Alumni now and since last year she is member of Bobby McFerrin's Singing Tribe, currently writing her second album, after her first one, {Amuri}Amari, got in the ballot to be nominated to the Grammy Awards 2020 as Album of the Year and Best World Music Album, together with The Lotus Sound debut album, "Keep Dancing".
Last year she also put together a collective of 89 musicians from 26 countries to create "Pause for Humanity", a piece promoted by the Indian Guru Deepak Chopra, written with the Spanish composer Pedro Osuna and interpreted by the Middle Eastern star Mayssa Karaa.
Paola is a driven artist with the desire to "change the world one note at the time".
"All things are possible if you believe" Mark 9:23 - The Bible