Always engaged in song-writing, suspended between RnB, soul and pop, musician and artist STEMIN is currently promoting his second debut album called ‘#tellyourheart’ (released on September 1st). STEMIN has been working on a unique sound, spending much time in producing new songs while finding a personal style that better expresses his artistic development in composition and performance. STEMIN comes from a jazz and soul background as well as being raised in close contact with RnB, gospel, and black music.
Growing up in a family where music was always at the center in different forms, he was introduced to music through his parents who introduced him in studying piano and saxophone. The study of an instrument as well as being always surrounded by tapes, CDs, and the attendance of concerts and festivals increased his interest for music. STEMIN also spent a lot of time in church, singing in the choir and playing piano. This environment became the platform where his music interest for gospel, spirituals and black music was shaped. As he states:
‘While growing up, music represented a hiding place, the place in which I could take shelter and find answers to my emotional side. What captured my attention in music was the sensibility of it and the way music connected to me personally and intimately. I am a very sensible and emotional individual who has been exposed to some difficult experiences as a kid, therefore music represented for me that world to which I could run to, a hiding place; a world where emotions were associated to different colors; a world where acceptance and understanding was ruling; an imaginary world that helped me overcome these dark moments. I remember listening a lot to Donny Hathaway and finding a connection with him in the way his sensibility was being portrayed through the music.’
While discovering music from the Motown era, STEMIN went back to jazz music and fell in love with it. He pursued jazz music on an academic level while studying in one of Italy’s most renowned music conservatory, the Saint Louis College of Music in Rome, famous for its jazz and pop department. Here he obtained a BA of Arts in Jazz vocals and at a later time he moved to the Netherlands where he achieved a MA of Arts in composition and performance at the Prins Claus Conservatorium in Groningen.
His first album called ‘Love Through My Eyes (2017)’ reflects his journey with jazz music and displays his talent for composition. Since 2015, he has been continuously touring Italy, Europe and Asia including numerous cities in Germany, Switzerland and in the Netherlands, where he currently resides.
STEMIN always tries to combine different styles, researching a personal expression in ways to use all the colors of his voice to open the eyes of his audience to different emotions:
‘The voice is a proper instrument, able to express deep feelings as almost any other instruments can do. It is strictly connected to the soul and becomes its audible expression; it converts the invisible in visible, it creates new sounds and colors, it transforms an emotion into music. The voice is an instrument to be found out, subject to constant evolution and expansion. An expansion which goes beyond our traceable imaginative borders.’
STEMIN’s new album, #tellyourheart, which is set to be released later this year, has a contemporary RnB and soul feel, both in the song-writing and production style (in part directed by the renowned Australian, electronic music producer, Nick Thayer) – and will feature a number of pre-release singles.
STEMIN strongly hopes that #tellyourheart becomes one in a series of musical messages to people. It’s easy to become trapped in life, but there is always a way out. He tries to be a living example of this. He wishes for his journey to empower others:
‘Life is not about being told you are one thing and not another, or being put in a box. You can be many things and to many people – and I hope my experiences allows others to realize the same, whether now, or in time.’
