This past Saturday, Sept. 17, Minneapolis singer-songwriter Raffaella came to Davies Student Center to share her music with students. 

Sammy Wroge, a fourth-year integrated strategic communications student at UW-Eau Claire and the concert co-chair, coordinates all of the concerts that take place at the Cabin, along with her Co-Chair Ben Ostertag. 

Wroge runs her own music management company while attending school, and she hopes to continue to work in the music industry. She said she often gets to personally know the artists that perform at The Cabin, and this weekend, she chose to share Raffaella’s music with the university.

“I’m mostly excited for her to get exposure in a different place and for Eau Claire to have a bigger artist come play too,” Wroge said.

Raffaella has had a passion for singing since she was a child. She studied acting, but found she couldn’t connect to her emotions or herself as well through acting as she could through music.

Raffaella studied French literature in college, but discovered she couldn’t see herself pursuing a career in that area, so she kept singing and started her music journey. 

Born and raised in New York City, Rafaella lived there up until two years ago, when her heart led her to Minneapolis where her partner lives.

“My favorite thing about performing is the intimacy of it, and the connection to people,” Raffaella said. “And the intimacy comes with the connection because you have no time to think and you’re just in survival mode.”

Raffaella has 228,648 listeners on Spotify. Her most popular song “On the Lookout” tops her chart with almost 3 million listens.

“There’s a lot of themes of avoidance in my music, and it’s my way of confronting it,” Raffaella said.

Colton Weitzel, a fourth-year graphic communications student, is a huge fan of Raffaella’s music and said he was excited when his friend Wroge was able to bring Raffaella to UW-Eau Claire.

“The way she presents herself is dreamy and pop-y, but it has very creative lyrics that you would see in an up and coming artist like herself,” Weitzel said.

“I hope listeners feel seen, and I hope they feel like a lyric hits them in a way that they didn’t realize it could,” Raffaella said. “Mostly I hope it elicits some sort of emotion, because I feel like music is the one thing we have still to spark some sort of feeling that won’t ever go away.”

In a moment of spare time, it’s worth it to take the time to attend a concert at the Cabin.

“Patience is key. Being in the moment with people you love is key,”  Raffaella said. “Don’t be mean to yourself––really practice not being mean to yourself. Just try to be as present as possible and be around people that make you feel good about yourself.”

Schad can be reached at [email protected].