About
Clivia
CLIVIA TANISI — THE VOICE AS PRESENCE
Clivia Tanisi is an Italian artist whose artistic research originates from the voice as a space for listening, transformation, and presence: a language that moves through body, music, words, and matter.
Born in Switzerland and raised in Salento, in southern Italy, Clivia began singing as a child. Her voice accompanied the everyday life of her town: from the terraces of her family home, where the neighbors could hear her, to the church choir, which she joined at the age of eight, and her first professional performances at the age of twelve.
Her encounter with jazz during her adolescence opened up a new language for her. Through the music of great performers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, she discovered a form of expression capable of bringing together technique, freedom, and emotional depth. By the age of fourteen, she was already a jazz singer, performing in concerts and shows throughout southern Italy.
Music has always been an essential part of her life. However, when the time came to decide how to balance her artistic path with motherhood, Clivia chose to dedicate the following years to raising her two daughters.
It was not a renunciation of music, but the suspension of a fundamental part of herself. A part that, although remaining silent, continued to belong to her identity.
After almost twenty years away from the stage and professional musical life, her voice began to emerge again through a process of personal and artistic rediscovery.
In 2020, she released Love’s Way Back, her recording debut, produced by legendary drummer Dave Weckl. The EP, released by Autumn Hill Records, features an international lineup comprising Dave Weckl, Tom Kennedy, Bob Franceschini, and George Whitty.
The project was born as an act of reconnection with that part of herself that had always remained alive: a journey through songs reinterpreted with personal sensitivity and a vision deeply connected to the courage to follow the dictates of the soul, facing fear and self-doubt in order to remain true to oneself.
From this renewed connection with music, Clivia’s path continued to evolve beyond interpretation.
During a period of deep introspection, through meditation, the composition of her first original song, Heal Your Heart, emerged. A significant step for an artist who did not begin as a songwriter and does not play musical instruments, but who found in the voice her primary creative instrument: a place where body, emotion, and sound meet.
Writing came by following the same inner movement.
From this exploration came her first book, Non sei bloccato. Stai cercando vita dove non c’è (You Are Not Stuck. You Are Looking for Life Where It Is No Longer There), a work born during a period of personal transformation and devoted to the themes of listening to oneself, the body’s signals, and the search for an authentic direction.
Today, Clivia Tanisi continues this journey through an interdisciplinary artistic language that brings together voice, music, writing, performance, and contemporary artistic practices, also exploring the transformation of matter.
Her artistic research explores the concept of presence: the moment when a person returns to listening to what is truly alive within themselves and finds the courage to express it.
The voice is the connecting thread throughout her journey: it moves through music, words, and body, transforming experience and listening into an ongoing artistic exploration between transformation and presence.