Allie Tamburello: “Feelings First”

“Music is my first love. Acting is my mistress” said Allie Tamburello when I asked her which of her two passions was the greater. I thought it was a perfect answer given the path she has followed in her life. It is wonderfully winding. She is a singer, an actor, a songwriter, and a musician.

When the pandemic shut stages down, she was poised for her love and her mistress to meet. Tamburello was ready for a month-long engagement of the musical Bright Star, a Broadway show written and composed by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, at the Pagosa Springs Center for the Arts in Colorado when the run was canceled. In the past, she had successfully united the two in another Pagosa Springs appearance in the Johnny Cash musical Ring of Fire, a theatrical show built around the music of Johnny Cash. In that show, Tamburello was simultaneously an actor and a performing musician.

How did this Copiague H.S. student develop her skills and her talents which set her singing across the country? She began with the discovery of one of Long Island’s educational treasures: The Long Island High School of the Arts. While there, she realized that choosing music and performance was a career pathway. Daily, she saw her instructors were also working professionals too. There she performed, wrote original music, and developed a deeper confidence in her choice of a future in the performing arts.

Her musical and acting life continued in college. After graduating from SUNY Cortland with a degree in musical theater, Tamburello was admitted to The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, a conservatory that is one of America’s most esteemed acting schools, based in New York City. She has been on the move since graduating in 2018.

But in this Long Island Stage episode, you will meet the singer-songwriter. As a composer, Tamburello cites Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell as early influences. I asked her which comes first in her writing: words or music. Her response was pitch perfect. “Feelings first,” she said. Tamburello continued that she typically takes her experiences and ideas emerge from them. From those ideas then come lyrics. “Life lived in metaphors” was the way she summed up her lyrics. We were talking about music as literature.

Long Island Stage welcomes Allie Tamburello where we will hear the melodies she has wrapped her metaphors within.

http://www.allietamburello.com/