New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Devastated by the Syrian refugee crisis, Sevi Ettinger, a 15-year-old girl living in Shanghai, is heartbroken as she observes reports of the plight that these people - adults and children alike - are forced to endure. She pours her pain into a song and expresses their grief into lyrics:
Why can't we just be the people we are? Why can't we just be the people we want to be?
It's unfair, I feel like I am falling in the ocean, tasting the salty water.
Overcome with emotion, Sevi allowed the song to freely flow, recording it via an app on her phone. "Salty Water" is a reflection of the tears of the refugee children she is channeling in the song, as well as her own empathy. The song is the title track of Salty Water (Sevillana Records), her debut EP produced by Grammy Award-winning Jeff Bova, Phillip Jarrell, and Sevi Ettinger, mixed by Jeff Bovaand mastered by Bernie Grundman.
Not musically trained in the traditional sense, Sevi hones a unique cognizance of arrangement and creativity. She writes songs in three or four part harmonies and background parts, that are not just for coloring but part of the definitive body of the song. She can't hear the song without them.
Her social consciousness and emotional maturity also permeates through the other three songs on the EP. The vibrant danceable bounce of "Live" ("Daydream...Dream The Things No One's Dreamt Before") and "Don't Fall Behind," in which Sevi posits that the world seems out of control, give way to the deeply personal ballad "Eyes."
"My EP is dedicated to the people who can't be who they want to be due to fear, violence, and discrimination," states Sevi. This is expressed in the EP's artwork, whereby the colored smoke depicts the bombed cities like Aleppo, which ejected the dust-covered faces of the children without homes, forced into a totally alienating bewildering future. "No matter your age, we all have a voice to be part of the solution, and not part of the problem," she continues.
Bringing the story full circle, Sevi is a top fundraiser for USA for UNHCR's (the UN Refugee Agency) "A Mile Together" campaign, benefitting refugees.
