Filomena Campus is the kind of artist who refuses to live in one lane. A jazz vocalist, composer, lyricist, academic, and theatre director, she’s built an internationally respected career that pulls as much from modern literature, theatre, and visual art as it does from the deep cultural roots of her native Sardinia. From collaborations with leading UK jazz innovators and fellow Sardinian musicians, to performances across global festivals and iconic London rooms, Campus has consistently shaped work that feels both fearless and finely crafted—most recently through her Filomena Campus Quartet and her boundary-bridging Theatralia projects. We caught up with Filomena to talk about the journey so far, the stories behind her music, and the release of her new album “Theatralia”.
Filomena, thanks for taking the time to speak with Occhi Magazine. Congratulations and best wishes with your latest album. We’ll get to it in a moment but, firstly, what’s your earliest memory of music—where were you, and what did it awaken in you before you had language for it?
Thank you for having me.
Since I was a child, music has always had a powerful hold on me. I could not resist it: whether it was on the radio or a TV programme, it totally captured me. It was a need. I remember locking myself in my room after school, listening to music, singing and dancing. Where I was born, there were no music schools, not even a real music shop, and there was no internet at the time to discover new music. I couldn’t wait to leave, which I did when I was 18, to study at university in Cagliari, Sardinia’s capital. Within a matter of months, I joined a dance school and started singing in clubs while studying. Singing has always been a physical and spiritual need for me.
Do you remember the first time jazz felt like home—a voice, a record, a concert—and what it permitted you to feel?
I was 14 and a friend sent me a tape (yes, we used tapes! 😊 ) with the song Are You Going with Me? by Pat Metheny. It was love at first hearing. Then I discovered Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, and when I was 18, I remember attending a concert by Paolo Fresu and Antonello Salis, two of the greatest Italian jazz musicians. That really felt like home; it was pure joy. I had no idea that one day I would be on stage with both of them
Growing up in Sardinia, what sounds, stories, or traditions shaped your ear and your imagination in those early years?
Sardinia has a rich and ancient musical tradition, including something absolutely unique like the launeddas (an ancient Sardinian wind instrument made from three cane pipes and played using circular breathing) and incredible vocal traditions such as the Tenores, with their distinctive guttural singing and extraordinary harmonies, not to mention improvised poetry created in the moment. Living there, you just take these things for granted, but when I left, I realised the value of this ancient musical tradition, even though I never practised it myself. But I’m sure those sounds, which to me are part of what Hélène Cixous calls languelait, the sounds and rhythms of our mother tongue absorbed from earliest childhood, are now part of my DNA, and when I sing in Sardinian (in the song E Mi Drommia) they certainly resonate in my voice and my music.
When did you realise you weren’t only learning music but also discovering yourself through it? What part of you was coming into focus?
Interestingly, my learning and academic career has focused on other disciplines: literature, theatre, semiotics, feminist theories, but they are all part of who I am as an artist today. I started studying music as a self-taught singer, then took classes and attended courses, masterclasses and workshops with some great people. Music is my real language. In fact, writing a PhD has sometimes been a struggle because my work is rooted in music, performance and theatre practice, not the linguistic code. Discovering myself through my vocality is something that happens every time I sing or make music with other people. It feels like allowing my true self to emerge, without masks. Singing means allowing myself to be vulnerable, almost like being naked, and being completely present in that moment.
In your early development, who helped you most—mentors, fellow musicians, teachers—and what did they teach you that still guides you today?
In Sardinia there were not many opportunities to study jazz, apart from a brilliant yearly workshop organised by Paolo Fresu at the end of summer, in a town in the heart of Sardinia. It made a real difference to me, as that was where I started studying with my jazz voice mentor, Maria Pia De Vito, now a dear friend. I also attended workshops wherever I could, with people such as Norma Winstone, Sheila Jordan, and many others, while later in London I took private classes with a fab teacher from the BBC Singers. I have always been fascinated by using the voice as an instrument, moving away from the cliché of the female jazz singer, and vocalists like Maria Pia De Vito have been fundamental.
Was there a turning point when you felt your voice become unmistakably your own—less careful, more truthful? What changed?
I have a strange relationship with my voice. As an eclectic artist, being involved in other disciplines, I often feel guilty that I cannot focus 100% on singing and practice for hours every day. However, I’ve made peace with that. I am finally proud of my sound. Even if some notes might not be perfect, I think what I transmit to the audience- the extraordinary energy and way we engage with each other as a band on stage- is much more important than that. And the audience feels it.
Looking back, what are you most proud of in your journey—something that might not be obvious from the outside?
I am very proud of some of the theatre/jazz productions and international projects I have created and directed. One of them is Monk Misterioso (monkmisterioso.com), adapting a monologue about Thelonious Monk by the late Italian writer Stefano Benni, with whom I collaborated for almost 20 years. I’m also proud of the jazz festival I organised between London and Sardinia (we stopped because of Brexit and Covid), and of my recent PhD, which was LAHP-funded at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. I am grateful to London and to this country for allowing me to realise beautiful projects across music, theatre and academia.
Professional resilience is often invisible. What does “staying the course” actually look like in your life—practically, emotionally, creatively?
“Staying the course” could actually be the title of the book of my life! 😊 It is extremely hard, and sometimes I feel as though I am working against all odds. This is true in so many ways, especially in jazz, where we often have to do everything ourselves, from promotion to album production and everything in between.
Lately, everything has become much more difficult because of funding cuts to the arts, entire theatre, music and humanities departments being closed down at universities, and the terrible times we are living through with everything that is happening around us in the world. Plus, in a way, I sometimes feel displaced both here and in Italy, although London is my real home now. But I am hopeful that things will change for the better.
Your company Theatralia began in London in 2003. What were you longing to create at that time—what kind of project did you need that didn’t quite exist yet?
I think I started Theatralia because I needed to create a kind of theatre that leaves doubts in the minds of spectators, that raises awareness and, above all, speaks about the times we are living in, as my masters Franca Rame and Dario Fo used to say.
Theatralia as a theatre company was actually born in Sardinia, where I directed my first projects, including Everyman, performed in Middle English. When I moved to London, I officially launched Theatralia here as an international collective of performers and artists, combining literature, physical theatre, performance art and digital art with live music and audience participation. One of our first productions was Not in My Name at Camden People’s Theatre, an adaptation of a Living Theatre text against the death penalty. We had a three-week run, and it was an incredibly emotional experience, particularly because we were talking about real people who were on death row in the US.
The ensemble has always changed according to the needs of each production, although some artists and collaborators, such as digital artists SDNA (https://movingimage.art/) have been part of many of my projects. In the following years, I directed U238, a performance art piece about the use of depleted uranium in so-called peacekeeping missions, adapted from a text by Italian theatre-maker Marco Paolini. Then began the long adventure of Monk Misterioso (performed at Riverside Studios, Edinburgh Assembly Queen’s Hall, Italy, and King’s Place London) with Italian writer Stefano Benni. My collaboration with Stefano continued for many years and gradually became intertwined with my music as much as with my theatre. He was a great jazz lover and an extraordinary spoken-word performer on stage, with the timing of a real jazz musician.
As Artistic Director, what values do you feel responsible for protecting in Theatralia—and how do you keep that spirit alive as the work evolves?
By keeping working, researching, and practicing, and never taking anything for granted. By staying curious and taking risks- many risks. For me, that’s how you keep the work alive: remaining open, questioning things, exploring techniques, travelling, meeting people, listening to the audience’s reactions, crossing boundaries and never becoming too comfortable with what you already know.
Your role as an educator is a major thread in your life. What do you hope students feel and understand through working with you—beyond technique?
I love teaching, directing, and working with students. One of the best experiences I’ve had in recent years was a directing project last June at Riverside Studios in London, working with a group of 14 phenomenal performers from Drama Studio London. We brought together works by theatre-maker Franca Rame, the subject of my PhD, and her partner, Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo. We applied the ethics of Theatralia, creating a safe space in which we could explore the work together, sharing knowledge and experience and always undertaking thorough research into the subject we were exploring. The students felt free to bring their own individual voices and talents to the process, while caring for and supporting each other. At the same time, I kept pushing them not to play safe, but to stretch their skills, take risks, and discover how much further they could go. And they did. We had standing ovations, and it was an incredibly emotional experience for all of us.
What do you think universities can uniquely offer emerging performers, and what do you feel young artists still have to learn outside the classroom?
Universities can be fantastic places for emerging performers because they offer them the freedom to explore, experiment, and dare to do things that can become much more difficult once they enter the profession. They should be spaces where you can take risks, make mistakes, question conventions and discover who you are as an artist. Sadly, I think universities today are partly losing that freedom to be outrageous, which was such a healthy part of artistic and intellectual life, and are increasingly becoming more like businesses than pedagogical spaces.
What young artists still have to learn outside the classroom is how to survive in the real world: how to create opportunities, deal with rejection and uncertainty, collaborate with very different people, and keep developing their practice when there is no longer a teacher or institution providing a structure around them.
Turning to Theatralia (the album): when did you first sense this project needed to be made, and what central question or feeling was it built around?
I think the name is the key. Theatralia has gradually become a sort of avatar of myself, and the album gave me the opportunity to bring together all the different aspects of my creative life that we’ve been talking about. Every song is quite different from the others and tells a different story, often coming from a different period of my life. Evergreen, for example, takes me back to the moment just before I left Sardinia, when I had no idea what was waiting for me (“winters’ gone, but spring is still away”).
At the same time, there are tributes to Franca Rame, the words and poetry of Stefano Benni, Sardinian memories and mythology, and all these different worlds that have become part of who I am as an artist.
Above all, though, making this album felt like a necessary act of acknowledging and celebrating the amazing musicians I am lucky enough to work with: Steve Lodder, Rod Youngs and Charlie Pyne. This is our real sound. An album can perhaps never quite capture the energy we have when we play together live on stage, but the spirit is all there!
This record is full of voices—your quartet, literature, Sardinian memory, female genealogy, collaborators like Jonathan Coe, Gina Tondo, and the presence of Stefano Benni. How did you choose who belonged in this world, and what did each collaborator help you reveal?
More than choosing them, it was about embracing these marvellous people who have been part of my journey.
Jonathan Coe has been such a wonderful encounter. He is not only a great writer but also a very good jazz pianist, and whenever he can, he comes to our concerts. His beautiful sleeve notes for the album are an incredibly generous gift to us.
Stefano Benni is an integral part of the album. His words and poetry appear in different places, and the record even includes his voice, taken from a performance we did together at PizzaExpress Soho years ago. So his presence is not simply a tribute; he is actually there.
When Gina Tondo gave me her painting called Filomena as a gift some years ago, I immediately knew: this is going to be the cover of my next album. I didn’t even have to think about it.
And then there is the female genealogy, which is deeply connected to my academic research. Over the years I have encountered, studied and, in some cases, met extraordinary women, artists, theatre-makers, philosophers, whose work helped me understand where I come from, as a woman, as an intersectional feminist, and as an artist. There is so much of them in this album. So I don’t think I really chose who belonged in the world of Theatralia. In a way, they were already there.
Finally, please tell us more about the album launch event at Pizza Express Live (The Pheasantry) in Chelsea. What can audiences expect for the evening?
We can’t wait to be back at one of our favorite venues, The Pheasantry in Chelsea, part of PizzaExpress Live. It’s going to be a very special night because we are finally launching Theatralia, released by 33Jazz Records, and the album will be out on the very same day.
We’ll have copies available on the night at a special launch price, and I know there are even people coming from Italy especially for the occasion. So I have a feeling it’s going to be magic!
And I can give the readers of Occhi a little extra treat: you can get a discount on tickets by calling the box office on 020 3798 9192 and quoting the magic word “Theatralia”. I can’t wait to see you all there!
Many thanks for offering our readers a discount. I’m sure the night will be brilliant!
For further information, please visit
https://www.filomenacampus.me/
https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/filomena-campus-quartet-theatralia
Photos by Daniele Franchi, Daniela Zedda, Marco Colombino, courtesy of Filomena Campus
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