Pierangela Dózsa: the Rising Temptress of Music
Pierangela in front of one of her murals. Photo used for thumbnail graphic by Ema Capilla.
By Farah Rincon
“Jazz girl, muralist, and overall right brained” are the words 18-year-old Venezuelan musician Pierangela Dózsa Chiodi (she/her) uses in her Instagram bio to present herself to her audience. After a thorough, insightful, and (what honestly felt like a) therapeutic interview on her life and music career, I could not have searched for a better arrangement of words to describe this rising singer. Piera, short for Pierangela, creates a unique, hypnotic, and dreamy sound through her layered harmonies and jazzy chords, casting what feels like a magic spell through her songs. Her most recent singles come in three: “Hypnotize,” “Mirror,” and “Mind’s Conviction.” Each of these have their own story to tell, but this trinity of songs are interconnected through lessons of romance, self-love, and identity.
Piera cites artists such as Hiatus Kaiyote and Sabrina Claudio as her biggest inspirations. Piera emphasized the personal relationship that she’s developed for Sabrina Claudio’s music, “Every time she comes out with an album it’s so aligned with whatever I’m going through in that period.” Not only that, but both Claudio’s and Piera’s essence and themes of sensuality and femininity feel intertwined in their songwriting. On Sabrina Claudio’s latest album, Based On A Feeling, Piera said, “It was beautiful the way she expressed it. It was empowering… and I find that really important because it was honestly a really big catalyst for me to explore my own connection to my own sensuality.” Piera channeled those themes to write songs that feel like a critique of love and self-perception as a whole.
Piera’s songwriting process revolves around her biggest life lessons. “My experiences with love and my experiences with connecting with other people have been the catalysts for the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my life… so it is something I really value and I write a lot of my music through that lens.” Her song “Hypnotize” is about “looking back at a version of [herself] that is powerful.” The overwhelming emotions of stress and anxiety took over her as she awaited finding out her acceptance to her dream school, Berklee College of Music. “I was doubting myself so f-ing much.” She went on, “I was like I don’t want my first single to represent me as someone who is sad and stressed… I want to write about my essence, my highest self.” Shortly after, “Hypnotize” came to life, revealing a conversation between two versions of herself: her present, doubtful self, versus her empowered and confident being.
“Mirror” is the first song Piera ever produced. The song is formatted as a poem rather than a song, and is inspired by J. Cole’s “Intro.” Both create the same feeling of listening to a slam poetry performance backed up by mesmeric and compelling instrumentals. The song speaks on her experiences with people channeling their own insecurities into critiques on her appearance. “My biggest fear is being misunderstood” she told me amidst the backstory of her first produced song. As she grew up and came to terms with her sensuality and how she portrayed it, she often felt criticized by her surroundings for showing “too much skin” and receiving lots of attention. “I grew up with a lot of attention on me. When puberty hit… it was interesting to see how the world perceived me.” From this came “Mirror,” which flows directly into “Hypnotize”, adding to the constant critiques on the reflection of her being.
Piera lived in Miami, Florida before attending Berklee College of Music. Her Venezuelan cultural roots have shaped her identity as a musician. “Honestly, being Latina is… it’s such a beautiful culture… My Latin identity is one of the only things that makes me feel like I’m part of something.” Aside from being a musician, Piera has also built a reputation as an artist, having painted multiple murals, one of which was featured in Miami’s renowned Art Basel event. “I’m always trying to see where I find myself… I’m a musician but I’m also an artist… I feel like there’s a bit of both; but I feel like I don’t fit into one group entirely. With my Latin heritage I’m like: “I’m Latin. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody and this is what I am.” While Piera has no current music released in Spanish, she aspires to add some to her discography one day. “I write songs in Spanish…I would love to do an entire album in Spanish and let that be part of my artistic profile because it is very very important to me.”
Piera’s strong senses of identity, sound, and aesthetic continue to grow as she enters a new chapter of her life, living out her dreams in the big city of Boston. In the future, Piera says her main focus is to make jazz fusion and to achieve a higher quality of production value at Berklee. We can only imagine what’s next for the rising singer, but I can attest that it will definitely be exciting to listen to.