Jules Cambarieu stated, “Music is the art of thinking with sounds.” To paraphrase his statement I would prefer to say, “Music is the art of feeling with sounds.” Music owns a tremendous power; it can transform people’s feelings, beliefs, and thoughts. The composer’s feelings expressed in a piece of music can become the listener’s feelings, or the listener can find resonance in their own state of mind in the music they hear. I believe this is something incredible!

The power of music can also draw out the worst from human souls, offering messages of violence, full of hatred and racist slogans. There are many expressions of this in the music industry. Youth are often the most vulnerable to receive these negative messages conveyed through music. That is why I am involved in Play Music—Stop Violence, a project run by the Community of Sant’Egidio. This movement of lay people has more than 60,000 members dedicated to evangelisation and charity in Italy and in more than seventy-three countries throughout the world. This youth musical competition offers the opportunity for young musicians to explore, through their original music, important and timely issues: peace, solidarity, racism, violence, war, respect for life, and living together within different cultures. This year the final concert has been held in the Auditorium of Rome with more than 1,200 people, mostly youth, in attendance. This has been a great opportunity to foster awareness of love and peace in many young students in the grip of violence.

Music has a true power to transform the world. Songs have made history and have been anthems of peace movements. “We Shall Overcome,” for instance, was the anthem of the movement of Martin Luther King Jr. against racial segregation in the United States. The National Anthem of South Africa is made up of two hymns: “Nkosi Sikelel’i Africa” and “Die Stem van Suid- Afrika.” The first (“God Protect Africa” in Xhosa), was the anthem of the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela, and the second (“The Call of South Africa” in Afrikaans) was the anthem of South Africa dominated by whites. The two pieces were joined in 1997 by Nelson Mandela in a single piece of music to mark the unity of the people of South Africa. The international hit “We Are the World” represented the reaction of the greatest singers of the 1980s to the terrible famine in Ethiopia. In this sense, music has been a real force for change in the face of situations that seemed unchangeable.

I believe that music moves hearts and minds, brings men and women together, and leads them to lift up their eyes and open up to beauty, to peace, and to God. Music is universal: it touches everyone’s heart. In my experience, in order to create good music, it is necessary to confront reality, to see things with one’s own eyes, to personally get in contact with situations of suffering. It is very difficult to write about something without true understanding. This will be an incredible source of inspiration. The beauty of music can resonate and spread positive messages that unify and do not divide.

I always had, since I was six years old, a strong desire to play the piano, and some years later I specialized in writing musical scores for films. My music profession has always played a fundamental role in my volunteering with marginalized children, immigrants, and elderly people. I believe that music has to come from experience and proximity to the lives of others.

I think this is an ongoing process. I like to think that music is characterized by harmony, because in a chord, all elements have a place, without prevailing over the others, and each contribution makes all the others better. There are many fundamental attributes that music carries that can be a lesson for life. If we take the main elements of music and we apply them to life, I think we can be transformed continuously. With my music I would like to touch hearts and minds, and with its power, communicate my desire for a better world.