Growing up in a musical family, Adriana Cancelliere has always had a the love of music. It wasn’t until recently, however, that she started to perform her own music for audiences.
Hailing from Cranston, Rhode Island, Cancelliere grew up with an opera singer for a mother and a bass player for a father. Her dad was a ’music junkie,’ who listened to ‘really good music’ while raising her. Cancelliere said she was exposed to Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Missing Persons, classical music and many other artists and music genres as a child.
At 10, she started singing and acting in theater productions. Cancelliere didn’t learn how to sing by taking lessons, she said her talent has come from experience and listening to her favorite singers as she grew up.
“I think I took one [class] but I didn’t like the instructor,” she said. “She made me do some weird breathing exercises that I didn’t like.” Two years ago, Cancelliere picked up and learned the guitar, which she uses on stage as her only prop.
In 2015, Cancelliere performed her own material for the first time, a new experience for her. Cancelliere participated in theater throughout high school, but Cancelliere said she had never performed as herself before, as opposed to under the guise of a character.
“[Performing my own music] was really nerve wracking because I wasn’t used to that,” Cancelliere said. A few months prior to performing her own music, Cancelliere started performing covers from bands like the Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. She explained that she always took the song and made her own cover of it, singing her own version of it when she performed.
Since taking the stage as herself for the first time, Cancelliere has performed at the 401 Coffee House on campus, even traveling to open mic nights in Providence and other venues around the URI area.
Cancelliere says she’s going to search for locations to perform in Boston and in New York, where she will be transferring for school in the fall. Originally, she went to school for fashion business in New York but transferred to URI to “take a risk” and study physics. However, she is transferring back to New York to study fashion once again.
“I really love the combination of fashion and music,” Cancelliere said. They “combine really nicely, like ying and yang.” While she is studying physics at the moment, and soon fashion in the fall, Cancelliere said that she would pursue her music if it goes somewhere.
“I go where it takes me,” Cancelliere said.
She does not have her music available online anywhere right now, but she is planning to put her work out there soon. She is planning to record an album of her own music in the upcoming weeks.
Make sure to keep an eye out for her new music under her stage name Ahdri and for possible performances at the 401 Coffee House in the near future.