STEFA* is a vocalist, composer and performance-based artist from Queens, NY. After studying euro-centric classical music for 20 years, their current practice has them creating sonic and visual work around their journey of decolonization and personal revolution, amalgamating minimalism, punk, and experimental pop to better understand their multi-dimensional identities.

Inspired by STEFA*’s family and secrets that are still only partially revealed, Sepalina tells the tale of a native alien and how she came to inhabit this planet, washed up on shore in the present, stripped of her memories and her language.

“THE TITLE TRACK ‘SEPALINA’ IS MY PROTEST SONG, MY SONG FOR THE REVOLUTION. I WAS LIVING IN BUSHWICK WHEN I WROTE IT, AND SO MUCH WAS HAPPENING AROUND ME – VIOLENT GENTRIFICATION, POLICE BRUTALITY AND COUNTLESS PROTESTS AGAINST ALL THAT.

"There’s this Pablo Neruda quote that translated into English says: You can cut all the flowers but you can’t keep Spring from coming.’ I thought of all these uprisings around the world and the fact that we are no longer okay with being oppressed or marginalized.

"We have enough language, knowledge and ways to spread information around that we’re becoming stronger – that’s what they’re so afraid of, the governments and these powers. And so that was the connection that I made between those worlds – and Sepalina – but I don’t know what it means. I haven’t given it a direct narrative.”

Growing up, STEFA* sang in choir and had profound experiences blending her voice with groups: “I’d sing these very epic pieces as a 15 year old girl. When I started going into my solo work, I wanted to replicate that feeling I had when I was in a chorus and I was singing one harmony line and there were four other lines around me and 80 other voices and yet, it felt like one voice. So that’s how I got into looping and harmonizing with myself. I thought, how do I just rely on myself and how do I become this chorus and this orchestra of voices? 

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