Arianna Bergamaschi
Italian singer, songwriter, stage actress and TV presenter
“How can you say to your kids and your grandchildren, that you had the chance to do something and you didn't?”
- Arianna Bergamaschi
Arianna Bergamaschi—Italian singer, songwriter, stage actress and TV presenter—is worried about our quickly warming planet. Being the artist she is, she was inspired to write and sing a song about it.
“Terra Madre” is an environmental anthem Arianna wrote as a wake-up call and plea for all of us to take action to protect and restore the wild, and to stop the degradation of our natural world. Her powerful song was created to inspire action among listeners and to point them to Re:wild for the tools and resources they need to make a difference.
Arianna says that she woke up in the middle of the night in Sicily with the melody already playing in a loop in her mind’s ear, and knew that she had to write it. She later collaborated with musician Michelle Fischietti in Milan and writer/director Leonardo Ricagni in Los Angeles to finish the song.
“We were at the piano,” Ariana says, “It was urgent. It's a theme that has no music. I don't know any song that is really speaking about this.”
As a child, Arianna spent summers in a rural area about an hour from Milan, where she helped farmers and often wandered in the woods until dusk. Despite having no access to hot water nor a comfortable bed, she looks back on that time fondly. Being in nature, she says, “you come back to the real you, connecting with something that is deep inside you.”
Arianna entered the spotlight at an early age, appearing in commercials and on TV when she was only seven. At the age of 12, she became “the Italian Disney girl,” similar to Britney Spears in the U.S.
“My mother was a singer and my grandmother was a pianist,” she says, “Music was always in our house and all over the place.”
Arianna’s dream was always to be in musical theater, which later came true. Arianna performed in several U.S. and Italian stage productions, including The Murder Ballad, The Wizard of Oz (also starring her dog as Toto), and Beauty and the Beast (she was Belle). “If I'm sad and I go to a theater and I see a musical, I don't remember what’s outside. It's like I'm in a bubble. It’s an escape.”
While for Arianna musicals offer an escape, she also knows that music has incredible power to bring people together. She hopes that young people will listen to her new song, and be moved to take action for “Terra Madre” — for Mother Earth. She is donating proceeds from the song to Re:wild.
“They are really worried about their future,” she says. “They understand more than us that this problem is really urgent.” What she is most drawn to and proud of in the song is her sentiment that now is the time; we have a responsibility. “How can you say to your kids and your grandchildren, that you had the chance to do something and you didn't?”
Arianna takes solace in nature, particularly the ocean. “The thing that I love most in life, even more than singing, is the sea. There's no other thing that gives me peace in my heart and the feelings of freedom as the sea, the ocean.”