"We’re talking about an extraordinary singer who knows how to surprise as only a few do. A voice, a history, and an experience set in the future. It is intense, clean, rough and sweet, and comes on quick." Letizia Airos “Mariangela Bettanini. Music as a Journey”. i-Italy.

With three brothers a lot older than her, a father who loved Opera and classical music and a mother who sang along to the radio in the kitchen, as a child of the Sixties, she listened to music almost all day long.




Depending on the time of day she listened to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez… a radio programme called "Bandiera Gialla" or the songs of Luigi Tenco and Gino Paoli,  Ornella Vanoni and her songs about the underworld . And then the songs of the rice gatherers, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Sanremo Festivals or Vivaldi or Beethoven, Chopin, Baroque music...The Opera… Maria Callas …..!

From the ages of 10 to 15 she took private lessons in classical piano.

At the age of 15, she started to teach herself to play the guitar - her black “Ibanez”- and sing, following her natural talent.

"...Mariangela Bettanini has been exploring the question of art as an instrument of discovery, not as a reassuring mirror,  since the tender age of 15  when she started to experiment with the great potential of her voice for the first time..."
Marco Maiocco

She took part in several musical events in her home town, Genoa, in different 'base' groups and also performing solo.

She finished classical high school and decided to become a professional singer.

At 22 she went on tour with Ombretta Colli in the musical theatre show “Marilyn”, directed by Giorgio Gaber.

In 1983, as a private student, she obtained her Compimento Inferiore for the Diploma of Classical Singing at the N. Paganini Conservatory in Genoa.

In ’84 she formed “Bettamax”, a funky, rock and soul group which played together up until ‘90.

In 1989 and 1990 went on a live tour with Sabrina Salerno, in Europe and Russia, as a backing vocalist and solo singer.

She recorded the single “Facile” with many musicians from Genoa.

In 1991 she approached Hatha Yoga, discovering the benefits offered by relaxation and posture techniques. She gradually came to realise that body, mind, psyche and soul make up the total of the singer’s instrument and are inextricably linked. 

From '93 to '98 she lived on the Cote d’Azur in France, singing in the main hotels and clubs of the French Riviera broadening her musical culture substantially and building up an international repertoire from the multiple facets of different musical genres and vocal styles.

In 1995 her quest regarding the voice led her to Louis-Jacques Rondeleux who was co-founder of the Centre Pluridisciplinaire in Paris with Maurice Béjart. 

She studied classical singing privately with him for 3 years, developing a technique that would change her voice forever, extending its sound, power and improving breathing.

In 2003, embraced  the vision of inner and spiritual growth of the Master of truth Osho and she created “The Fragrance”, an essentially vocal CD, which she sung, composed, arranged, produced and recorded.


"The journey of her sound emphasizes a rediscovery of the various 'voices of the within' which we sense we possess, but no longer know how to evoke."
Guido Festinese

In 2005 the Cd “The Soul” was released, duetting with  Enrico Pinna from Genoa.

In 2005 her research in the field of jazz music, begun a few years previously, was put to good use in the recording and producing of the CD “Emotionally”  with Dado Moroni, Paolino Dalla Porta and Enzo Zirilli.

" The result is sometimes surprising (…) where Mariangela Bettanini leaves the jazz singer's classic interpretative standards to use grit, energy, dark and rough tone colours, unusual tonal excursions and go through worn out melodies with originality."
Vincenzo Roggero - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

In 2006 she obtained the certificate of Voicing,© a spiritual and vocal journey which celebrates the expression of our emotions and makes contact with the  most intimate reality.

From 2006 to 2010 she took part in the New York jazz scene, holding several concerts and recording the CD  "JAZZIN' GENOVA", a tribute to the Genoese School and her city's singer-songwriters.

"Mariangela sings like a woman of the sea who has met many finesses and infinite hardships in her life. She has lived and she has learned. She has worked on her voice like the old chisellers used to do in the past times. She has absorbed the essence of jazz like a protean porifer and she has transfused it in her soul with the wonders of ancient alchemies."
Enzo Capua

In 2010, a further spiritual and thus musical transition leads her to express her being through mystical music.

This consequently gave birth to: singing and meditation gatherings entitled : “The Song of Silence”, the Concert “The Divine Melody” and...

 

...the CD tribute to Christian Sacred  Music "O Magnum Mysterium" .

She travelled in India and then lived for some time in Konya, Turkey where Mevlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the Sufi Poet of Love, was buried.

She published the new CD "The Invitation", inspired by the poems of Rumi, the Sufi Poet of Love.