This young singer and composer, a communication and digital media student at IE University, was performing along with her fellow students from the IE Music Club on Creativity Day. While she was singing, Giulia held her cell phone in her hand, which she always uses as to not lose her place in the lyrics. “I have a bad memory, and when I sing, I take my smart phone with me, but when I play guitar, I don’t need it,” she admits to those of us that are here with her this afternoon, offering us a complicit smile. Nobody who sees Giulia perform leaves unimpressed: it’s pure passion.
Giulia Camargo’s voice is not the product of chance. On top of her natural talent, she has been taking music lessons for fifteen years—in other words, for most of her life. She sings as well as composes her own songs and plays multiple instruments, including the guitar and the bass.
People say that love for music is something that can only be felt, something that can’t be explained with words. Giulia sums it up in only a few: “Music makes me happy. I’ve been singing since I learned how to speak.” This relentless attraction can be “blamed” on her grandfather, a professional orchestra musician in Brazil who instilled this zeal and love of art in Giulia.
Giulia tells us that she left Brazil and moved to England with her family when she was only five years old. After a short stay there, they settled down in Portugal, where Giulia went to high school at the prestigious British St. Giulian’s School.
As a teenager, Giulia joined a band. Later, she decided to take a sabbatical year. During the first six months, she worked to save up some money while traveling around the Lusitanian country with her band, playing at various concerts. After that, she traveled to Colombia and Peru as a volunteer at an NGO, mainly giving English lessons to poor children and teens. Judging by sparkle in Giulia’s eyes, that time of her life must have been very intense. She gained experience while learning and maturing as a person. “I realized that music was more of a hobby than a profession. I make music because it makes me happy. If I had to live off of it, I don’t think I’d be happy,” she states.
In Segovia, where she’s studying communications and digital media, she’s accompanied by a band from the IEU Club. “I like indie rock and Brazilian music,” Giulia admits, and in the future, she’s not ruling out the possibility of creating her own band “so that music never disappears from my day-to-day life.”
It’s very easy to listen to Giulia sing. She’s uploaded a couple of songs to SoundCloud, an app that lets you stream music totally free. All you have to do is go to this IEU student’s profile (@giutheginger) and enjoy.
Giulia is a very active student at IE University. She’s always doing something. She’s in charge of public relations for the student government, belongs to the Music Club and works at The Stork, the online newspaper created by a group of eighteen students at IE University. In addition, she is collaborating with the university’s admissions team as a fellow thanks to a scholarship that covers part of her tuition expenses.
Two Start-ups
In addition to her artistic side, the Brazilian student has a very entrepreneurial personality, as she is the co-founder of two start-ups (emerging companies with a strong technological component). Along with her classmates, the Portuguese Jaime Pignatelli and the Austrian Sebastian Arnold, she created “JustMusicallySpeaking.com” to promote Portuguese and Spanish bands making music outside of the realm of commercial formulas. “It’s an online magazine where we try to promote different music that isn’t on the top sellers list,” she says.
On the other hand, the young Brazilian has created “7 Picos” a company that she created along with Segovian student Esaú Gozalo Ramos, which offers all sorts of services related to communications: logo design, brand development, marketing, webpages, videos, etc. “Lots of the students at IE University that are starting businesses come to us to promote them,” she says.
What about future projects? Giulia more or less has an idea: “To have my own band and a global communications company.” Without a doubt, she is an entrepreneurial artist.