“Her name is Sarah, she won Amici”. Who would have thought at the end of September 2023 that the city of Vigevano would rise to national prominence thanks to the then seventeen year old – Sarah Toscano reached the age of majority within Maria De Filippi’s talent show? She certainly didn’t, the public convinced itself of this along the way. An EP, entitled ‘Sarah’ recently released and a series of live dates – after ‘Rock me pride’ on 15 June in Rome, there will be ‘Noisy Naples’ in Naples on 4 July, ‘Fiera Milano Live’ in Rho on July 16th, ‘Atrincontra’ in Atri on July 24th and the Red Valley Festival in Olbia on August 17th -: since she won the Canale 5 program – Sarah Toscano has placed first both in the Singing category and in the general ranking -, the very young girl from Vigevano never stopped.
Sarah, what happened between mid-May and now?
“I immersed myself in a whole new, beautiful world, where I meet so many people every day, where I live from music and from what I like to do. They often stop me and ask me ‘Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?’ and my answer is always ‘No’. Maybe it’s because I’ve just started, but now I’m having a great time. I’m happy, immersed in a lot of work to do, but it’s what I want to do.”
Do you have any fears?
“Too many. Every now and then I think about something not positive, but why think about it? It’s going well now. It’s clear that you have to think about the future, about what will happen next. Now we have all the spotlight on us, and what’s next? What happens? I don’t know, you can’t know because it’s not something predictable and therefore I have certain fears about the future.”
Yours has been defined as the victory of those who have followed a path within the Amici school. Do you feel like a diamond in the rough? How is the Sarah of now compared to the Sarah who started the talent show?
“I am very proud of the path I have taken, because I have seen the improvements myself and usually we are the last to perceive our steps forward. I wouldn’t change anything about what happened, about what I did, because it made me grow and get to where I am.”
Let’s talk about the present and the future: will we have new music?
“Of course. We’ll have new music, we don’t know when yet but now as soon as I have a free moment I’ll go to the studio and start doing something new.”
Which song from your EP ‘Sarah’ do you like to sing the most?
“Every time I sing ‘Sexy Magica’ I have fun, but I would like to be able to sing ‘L’ultima volta’ because in my opinion it is beautiful. I am really happy, proud of that song and I would like to be able to take it around and make it heard by many people too live. Even ‘Voilà’ makes me emotional when I sing it.”
Do you have any good luck gestures before going on stage?
“I’m obsessed with perfumes and on Amici when there was the day of the episode, I always wore the same perfume. Which I only wore for the episode. So much so that once I went to the studio, I didn’t put it on and I called a girl from production saying ‘You have to send me home to get him because otherwise I’m going very badly today’. But they didn’t want to, because we couldn’t go back to the house and I forced the girls from production to go and get him and bring him to me, I’m sorry (laughs, ed.) the problem is that now there is no longer that perfume, it no longer exists.
This summer you will be on stage for some live dates: more fear or impatience?
“But what fear? Now I can’t wait, maybe when we get closer to the concerts I’ll get a little anxious. Even at the Future Hits in Rome I couldn’t wait to get on stage, the only moment of fear I have I had it ten minutes before starting and then it immediately passed, when I started singing I calmed down.”
You have always played tennis and you have also always sung: sport and music are two great passions for you. What would you choose between the victory at Roland Garros and the one at the Sanremo Festival?
“We will play tennis all my life. I have been playing tennis since I was four years old, I trained a lot, I played a lot of tournaments. But I never wanted to see my life in tennis. I am very competitive on the court, too much perhaps in a negative way, and I took it too hard. I felt really bad when I lost a match.”
What do you say to those who tell you that you are fragile, that you are still a little girl?
“I say they’re right. I’m eighteen, I’m fragile, I’m a little girl. It’s true. But I see it as an advantage: being so young, I’m already immersed in this world and I have time to grow.”
