Name: Angelina Luzi
Nationality: Italian-British
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Angelina Luzi 's debut solo album Untold is out now.

If you enjoyed this Angelina Luzi interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Soundcloud, and Facebook.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in your voice and singing?

Yes they surely did. I grew up listening to Jazz, singing in gospel choirs and listening to mainstream pop and rock music of the 90s watching MTV.

So I think that being exposed to a lot of different genres of music and performing from a very early age made me fall in love with music in general and pushed me to always follow my passion.

How and when did you start singing?

I started when I was about 5, when I was attending a nursery run by nuns and one in particular called Suor Grazia pushed me (literally ah ah) to sing during a sermon. I was petrified at first but it must have ignited something in me.

A few years later I asked my parents to join the local town’s choir and carried on from there, getting some singing lessons and joining other choirs until I formed a band with some friends.

Then, at 18 years old, I left Italy to go to London to graduate in music.

Singing is an integral part of all cultures, and traditions. Which of these do you draw from – and why?

I draw from Italian culture because I was born in Italy and spent the first 18 years of my life there but also from the UK as my mum is English so London has always been a second home for me.

I was brought up bilingual and in a very open minded household compared to other Italian families at the time. International artists and musical influences have always been prominent while growing up and African American music also became a great passion of mine listening to jazz, gospel and blues genres.

What were some of the main challenges in your development as a singer/vocalist?

Main challenges have been to keep a heathy and balanced discipline to take care of my voice.

As a singer I have always had to be careful to not smoke too much or not shout too much or go clubbing too much or drink to much … I’ve always been careful not to get colds … I had to make sacrifices to take care of my voice but it has probably kept me on the straight and narrow now that I think about it!!

The main challenge happened in 2019 when I suffered 2 voice haemorrhages and had to be on vocal rest for 2 months and voice rehabilitation for a year. That was really tough but I learnt so much about vocal health in that journey that it has made me a much better singer and vocal coach.

Which practices, exercises, or experiences were most helpful in reaching your goals?

Learning all over again about breath flow and support during my injury, from doing voice therapy with Tory Burnay at Guy’s hospital to singing rehabilitation with Dane Chalfin and larynx physio with Tran at Physio Ed.

I was in the hands of the best of the best in their fields who worked together as a team to get me back on stage. It was a great blessing to be looked after in this professional way and this was thanks to the NHS and Help Musicians’ UK.

Were there also “harmful” experiences?

The harmful experiences have been singing with people who do not understand how the voice works, from band members playing very loudly in practice and expecting the singer to sing for 4 hours consecutively louder than them, to not understanding how important it is to be able to change the key of songs for a singer as often as needed without making a fuss to understanding that preparing a good set list according to your voice to be able to warm up into the set makes all the difference in one’s stamina and performance.

What are the things you hear in a voice when listening to a vocalist?

Natural tone, vocal technique and raw emotion.

What moves you in the voices of other singers?

When I hear honesty and authenticity.

We have a speaking voice and a singing voice. Do these feel like they are natural extensions of each other, ends on a spectrum or different in kind?

Singing is an extension of speaking, it’s just put in a musical order. A lot of people think that singing should be a different voice coming from the sky but we all have a voice and we can all sing.

If you add practice, vocal technique and consistency, then you get to the next level. But ultimately singing is a very natural and ancient practice used for deep emotional expression, release, meditation and ritual. It should be accessible to everyone and not something only ‘allowed’ to a few.

I’ve met so many people that have trauma around singing who were told not to sing from an early age or bullied about it by their own families or schools. It’s heart breaking and so limiting. All competitive reality tv shows on singing are very detrimental to the human being.

Strain is a particularly serious issue for many vocalists. How do you take care of your voice?

I make sure I sing in the right key for me, that I am aware of my body sensation so that I can tell when I feel uncomfortable or in pain. I allow my self to be patient and get to some challenging notes gradually and with small pockets of practice.

I make sure I am warmed up and hydrated before I sing and I never sing on a tired or sore throat. I steam and rest my voice if I am ill or tired and avoid loud places.

I even check where I am in my cycle before I book big concerts as that can make a big difference in my vocal delivery and strain.

Are there recipes or techniques to get a damaged voice back in shape?

First and foremost vocal rest and more rest! It’s so hard for singers to take enough time out to rest their voice but it’s really the only way to truly heal.

This means no talking either!!!

How has technology, such as autotune or effect processing, impacted singing?

I personally think it has made singers very lazy and reliant on technology to sing in tune rather than work harder at their craft. To be honest it’s so overused that even great voices get ruined and turned into the same one - they all start to feel the same.

In my opinion excess autotune, like it’s used today, destroys the natural tone of a voice which is the first thing I listen for when I hear a voice and what gives me goosebumps.

For recording engineers, the human voice remains a tricky element to capture. What, from your perspective, makes voices sound great on record and in a live setting?

On a record I think it’s finding the right microphone that captures and highlights all the right frequencies of one’s voices. Every voice is different so the choice of the mic is important and personal. This way hopefully there will be less tweaking to do as possible later.

For Live I don’t really know - a good sound engineer that knows the singer and the band really well would normally know what to do to enhance the voice in relation to the other instruments. But that’s not really my domain.

How connected is the human voice to your own sense of wellbeing, your creativity, and society as a whole?

Extremely connected. I run a Patreon page and I am about to create a podcast on this subject as I have interviewed some really interesting people on music and wellbeing in my circuit, from music therapists to sound healers.

It’s really fascinating how ancient practices like singing affect us positively, both physically and psychologically, to our core. From the modification of the cells in the body to the balance in our vagus nerve to true scientific evidence healing via the expression of our own voice. Our voices are a means of communication and expression. So releasing is the best way to remove blockages in our body that can become very dangerous when stored inside for too long.

If everyone was able to self heal and communicate their power we would not need so many pharmaceutical companies in our crazy society,

What’s your perspective on singing someone else’s songs versus your own?

Personally, when I sing my own songs, I feel under a lot less pressure because I am not compared to anyone else. It’s me in my purest form whether people like it or not.

By writing and releasing certain emotions I can make sense of things that happen in my life, it helps me to process things in a different way and to let go of what does not serve me any more. It’s very therapeutic both for me and the listener when they connect with the song.

My debut album Untold is exactly about all this. It’s the expression of emotions kept inside for a long time until they finally and luckily all came to the surface like a river in flood.