Photographer Credit: Davide Casciolo
Former Fulbright Scholar Reinterprets Sicilian Folk Music For The Modern Day On Robert Ellis-Produced Album Roses and Basil, Releasing September 12
July 23, 2025 – Today, rising singer-songwriter Amanda Pascali shares her new single “Amuri,” the latest from her forthcoming Robert Ellis-produced album Roses and Basil (out September 12). The song opens with Ellis softly picking his guitar as Pascali sings an ancient Sicilian prose about all-consuming love, before erupting into a groovy cumbia rhythm inspired by the Latin sounds of her Texas upbringing. Bridging the worlds of Sicily and the American South, “Amuri” sets the tone for an album that is anchored in tradition, but reimagined for the modern day. Stream “Amuri”
Pre-order / Pre-save Roses and BasilAmanda Pascali on the new single: “‘Amuri’ opens the album with a stanza of ancient Sicilian prose: ‘Amuri, amuri, chi m’hai fattu fari? M’hai fattu fari ‘na granni pazzia.’ (‘My love, my love, what have you made me do? You’ve made me go mad.’) These centuries-old verses—adapted by many artists across time—tell the story of someone so consumed by love that they forget the path to the church. In my interpretation, that pathlessness becomes a metaphor for losing touch with what you once believed was absolute truth—all in the name of love. Though ‘Amuri’ borrows its opening from the past, the song itself is entirely my own. How strange and beautiful that something so old can still feel so relatable.”
She continues, “The day before we recorded this song, my producer Robert Ellis came over to the place where I was staying with a second-hand nylon string guitar he had bought that very same day. He sat at the table with me at golden hour, and as the sun shone through the windows, he played the song in a way that resembled Leonard Cohen’s ‘Master Song.’ The wheels started spinning at that moment.”
Amanda Pascali is a former Fulbright fellow endorsed by the Biden Administration’s State Department and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a current Harrington fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, who pioneered the first comprehensive project to translate and revitalize Sicilian folk songs. Her modern interpretations have captured attention online, with viral videos of her performing “La Mafia E Li Parrini” (The Mafia and the Priests), “Cu Ti Lu Dissi” (Sicilian break-up song) and “Quannu Moru” (The Day That I Die). Exploring the stories and themes in older music that still resonate today, Pascali blends folk/Americana influences with Mediterranean, Balkan, and Latin rhythms, as she delivers powerful tales of the American experience through the eyes of immigrants. “Amuri” follows the album’s debut single, “Wake Up, Baby!,” a song of unrequited love that reimagines a traditional Sicilian serenata, connecting the experience of waiting beneath a window to the modern frustration of being ‘left on read.’
A first-generation American, Amanda Pascali’s mother was born in Cairo, Egypt, and grew up between Paris and New York City. She and Pascali’s father, a refugee from Communist Romania with Italian roots, met and fell in love in Brooklyn. But when their family moved from New York to Texas, Pascali struggled to fit in with her peers. “In the words of poet Ijeoma Umebinyuo, I constantly felt ‘too foreign for here, too foreign for home, and never enough for both,’” she remembers. But picking up a guitar at age 12, and later beginning her work of reinterpreting Sicilian folk music, she created a space for herself, one that has resonated with fans across the world.
Amanda Pascali is currently performing at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, representing the United States at the USA Pavilion.
Roses and Basil Tracklist
1. Amuri
2. Cleopatra
3. Santa Lucia
4. Roses and Basil
5. Intermezzo
6. Wake Up, Baby!
7. Amara Terra Mia
8. Sweet Sixteen
9. Amuri (acoustic)
Follow Amanda Pascali:
Website – Instagram – TikTok – YouTube
