EMILIA

18-year-old Emilia from the outer city suburbs of Bentleigh is a striving jazz singer and songwriter, whose passion for music has been her entire life. Studying Jazz Voice & Music Performance at Monash, Emilia is now starting to turn her dream into a big reality.As a child, Emilia performed regularly and was a student at the Yamaha Music School. She participated in many performances at both her music school and at high school.Her pathway to jazz music specifically began when her singing teacher detected more of a natural jazz tone in her voice rather than pop/musical theatre (which is what she initially began singing). “It was just so natural”.She participated in a program that was run by Juilliard in New York, which introduced Emilia to a jazz focused environment and was the kick-start to her jazz career. She described the jazz community as, “very small,” however she loves it.She calls upon Ella Fitzgerald as her biggest influence yet admires the likes of contemporary jazz musicians such as Norah Jones and Kimbra.“When I was younger I would participate in everything and I was known as the singing girl” and when it came to the stage in her life where she had to decide what path she wanted to take in regards to her career, she “couldn’t think of anything else apart from music”. It wasn’t merely a specific moment rather than a gradual life choice. “It kinda never left me,” she states.She started song writing at the very young age of 11, only doing casual home recordings and later on, she began to perform her original work when she became a teenager. One of the first songs she wrote as a child, was titled I Don’t Need You Anymore. She says that now that she thinks about it, it is a very “jazzy” song. When writing today she describes herself as, “the type of person where [she doesn’t] actually plan to write anything, it’s more [waking] up at 3am because [she has] a song stuck in my head”. She doesn’t follow a certain structure; it’s more of a creative process.Emilia has just recently formed the band– Emilia & the Scarlette’s. Everything is still in the production process at the moment although they have 18 originals songs as well as additional covers. The band plans to produce all of their work and potentially go forth and create an EP and eventually an album.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLexL46hR2o&w=560&h=315]Emilia & The Scarlettes performing original tune Blue Eyes at Farouk's Olive, Melbourne

A song considered to be a “crowd favourite” is Red. The story is centered around a fiery and dangerous girl named Red, who sheds other people’s blood, slowly luring them in, only to defeat them. Red was created based on “girls who are so beautiful but are so awful on the inside”. Her songs tend to base around the concept of other beings or supernatural characters.Like every songwriter, Emilia tends to express or vent her feelings through music. “Which songwriter doesn’t do that?”Follow Emilia on:Facebook | Soundcloud | Twitter | YouTubeWritten by RSOM guest writer Kyra Tsitsinaris