Shara | fr

THERE MAY BE MORE THAN ONE ARTIST WITH THIS NAME!

1) SHARA (ethnic/pop/rock)

Born in Naples, under a "gemini sky", Shara (Sarah Ancarola) started her journey through the world of music at the age of twelve by recording a Christmas album. After highschool she got a deeper knowledge in singing and solfege by entering the Popular University of the Arts (Naples) where she studied vocal education, diction, acting, dancing and miming. Whilst at the university she participated in seminars on theatrical make up as well as TV and film direction. Between 1998 and 2000 she worked with different emerging bands having gigs in pubs and discos around Italy with a repertoire ranging from pop, rock, blues, funky, soul to dance music. At the same time Shara had the possibility to collaborate with some Neapolitan radios and local TV channels. She also became part of a gospel choir with which she toured Europe. This brought her to London, an ideal city for an artist like Shara who writes, composes and paints and as she says: "No matter where I am my inspiration is just around at the corner”.
Another important stage of her career, that introduced Shara to the music industry, was at the end of the ‘90s. That was, when she met Alfredo Petroli who by then had produced Alexia. Shara recorded a cover in a dance version for him.
In 2000 she started to work with the Neapolitan musician and producer Luca Stendardo and together they gave life to her musical project made up of pop, rock and ethnic sounds mixed up in a perfect fusion.
In 2003 Shara worked with one of the members of the “Blackbox” group, Valerio Semplici, and together they produced “Feet on fire”. This song was successfully aired in the summer of 2003 by many Spanish dance radios and discos.
In the autumn of 2004 she started the recording of her first album “Pranava Rainbow” which was the fruit of her first four years of friendship and collaboration with the producer Luca Stendardo.
In 2005 she had the opportunity to be a guest singer in the production of some albums by other important musicians and in 2006 she regularly attended a course in singing as a soloist and chorus. At the beginning of 2007 Shara moved to London where she lived nearly one year. There she had the opportunity of working with some artists and dj and together they made new songs. Shara could also work as a supporting artist in the music video shoot "Ain't the same" by Kris Baya and play the role as an extra in various English films. In the same period she could work at the Dominion Theatre where they were staging the musical "We Will Rock You" written by English comedian and author Ben Elton in collaboration with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor.
At the moment she's performing with her band in clubs, festivals and events and working at her second album.

The inner path
Music has always been the outstanding passion of Shara. Her artistic journey started with a gospel song and as if directed by her inborn music propensities she was attracted by Eastern philosophies and by the mystic doctrines of the Indian gurus. It can therefore be said that her spiritual route, which is made up of meditation and devotion to the Eastern philosophies, was harmoniously parallel to that of her artistic journey.
It is by rocking in the ancient scent of incense that evokes the silence in which the awakening is hidden. The rediscovery of the great legendary Myths of celtic and Western tradition came after, but they were not of secondary interesting in Shara’s training. However she took a necessary imaginary passage through “India” before Shara found her way back home. The result is an enchanting fusion between sounds and colours of the new millennium together with the past echoes of the “return to the origin”. Curiosity, thirst for knowledge and for musical research led Shara to cross the Mediterranean and to get to India, a land of contrasting elements, of reality and of imagination, which has always been present in her songs. It is this thirst for the absolute which was posed as a goal for her journey. That is, evaluating the meeting point between past and future, east and west, essence and existence, being and not being and then transferring this dimension into her music. Although the chant of the soul is sometimes sweet, it has a rebellious streak, and is as essentially free as a gospel music and Shara who is constantly on the run away from the chains of limits.
It is the soul of shanti, the peace in the heart, body and mind, which accompanies the birth of musical pearls like “India”, the first single written and conceived by Shara and composed together with Luca Stendardo; “Nothing on your mount” (all comes from nothingness) and of the pop-jungle “Divine” (the seed of what is up above is hidden in everyone). These are just some of the songs included in her first album “Pranava Rainbow” (the Rainbow of Eternal Sound). And with the song of her soul, Shara, affirms that “Pranava Rainbow” is not an arrival, but just a magical landing, a first important step towards the GOAL, the reason of her own existence: MUSIC.

“I am earth, water, fire, air, space, intelligence, reason and egoism on an illusionary plane. I am the Sound, that is the occult essence beneath all the mentioned things.”
- Ancient Indian aphorism -
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