Anna Caragnano is an Italian vocal artist from Taranto whose work spans experimental music, electronic production, film and television. She began her career alongside Maestro Beppe D’Onghia, mentor and longtime conductor for Italian singer-songwriter Lucio Dalla, before gaining international attention through Sintetizzatrice, her collaboration with Donato Dozzy created entirely from recordings of her voice.
A track from the project, Parola, was later selected for a Fendi Spring/Summer campaign and featured in the television series L’Arte della gioia. Since 2022, Caragnano has collaborated with composer David Holmes on the soundtracks for the series The Woman in the Wall and Michael Winterbottom’s film Shoshana. She has also toured across Europe and South America with Mrak of Tale of Us and collaborated with Primal Scream on their album Come Ahead.
Her latest album, Tamburi, released in May 2026 via Nautilus Musica (Donato Dozzy’s new record label), is closely connected to the place where she grew up. The title refers both to drums and to Tamburi, the neighbourhood of Taranto where Caragnano was born. The area has been shaped by the relationship between its Mediterranean surroundings, industrial development, environmental conflict and everyday life, all of which form part of the album’s wider context.
Produced by Donato Dozzy and Pietro Micioni, Tamburi combines electronic production with traditional instruments from southern Italy, including zampogna, organetto, udu and percussion. Caragnano also uses dialect, breath, chants, syllables and melodic fragments across the record, continuing her exploration of the voice as a musical instrument. As she explains in our interview, the album brings together “ancient sounds, modern structures, contemporary thought, and folk language.”
Anna Caragnano - Photo by Lara Cetti
Your new album Tamburi is deeply connected to memory, place and the city where you grew up. What's the story behind the album?
Tamburi is a sonic tale rooted in memory but it grows in the present. In music, we often try to fit into well-defined genres (for creative reasons, to simplify listening), but the sonic tale of a life is made up of inconsistencies, often very poetic, that I wanted to put on the tracks.
I sampled ancient instruments from southern Italy (bagpipes, accordions, udu, drums) to which Donato added synths. Ancient sounds, modern structures, contemporary thought, and folk language. The title comes from the neighborhood in Taranto where I was born, which in Italian means "drums." It all started there.
Your voice is the thread that runs through the entire album. When did you realise it could become more than a way of singing words, and instead become the foundation of your compositions?
I started playing guitar and studying classical music many years before I started singing. When I started using my voice to sing, I continued to think like a musician.
Whether they are sounds, words, melodies, songs, the voice is an instrument and I have always wanted to use it as such, as a vehicle of emotions, above all. But here, in “Tamburi”, I think that the voice has a great weight but the common thread is the drums, the sounds from underground.
You've worked with producers Donato Dozzy and Pietro Micioni on Tamburi. What made them the right collaborators for this project, and how did they help shape the album?
They were not only the right collaborators, they were and are the only people who could understand, embrace, make this idea their own. They have known me for a long time and there is a lot of respect.
I knew that putting this idea in their hands would mean making it flourish in the right way, in the direction we would never have had the courage to go in alone.
Anna Caragnano - Photo by Lara Cetti
Networking can feel intimidating, especially for emerging artists. What's the best networking advice you've ever received?
I've received a lot of advice, some very contradictory, but I've always observed rather than listened, and I've come to the rather obvious conclusion that you have to be yourself. A little less obvious is asking yourself: who am I? And trying to find out...
What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were starting out?
“Don't be afraid (of judgment, of making mistakes, of doing strange things). Fear only wastes time.”
When you've had a long or creatively demanding day, what helps you switch off and recharge?
Kung fu!!! And reading…
What are you listening to at the moment?
Boards of Canada, “Inferno” and a Bach Prelude in B minor that Alexander Siloti transcribed from Bach's original Prelude in E minor (BWV 855a).