It’s been said that music can take you around the world and back. This is certainly true for Flo Sabeva.
A growing legacy
Thanks to the piano, she’s become a globetrotter of sorts – with her talents taking her thousands of miles away from her home country Belgium. This includes a stint studying composition at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA.
Flo’s journey can be traced all the way back to when she first began learning the piano at the age of five. A decade later, her passion started to completely steer the direction of her life.
What you see now is the result of that.
Flo said:
“I was about 15 or 16 when I decided I wanted to do this as a profession. At first I went into classical music and was really into that. Then afterwards I changed when I discovered pop music and songwriting.”
Flo’s genre is now most characterised and influenced by this genre. However, growing up she feasted upon a diverse range of music. As well as listening to French and American artists during her formative years, she also enjoyed the likes of Beethoven and Chopin.
On leaning into pop music despite such a broad background, Flo explained: “I wanted to express myself and what I had inside of me. With the creative mind, there are so many things in your head and you just need to get them out! It can be anything and everything.”
A decade of silence
Flo started to ‘get them out’ when she was 25. During her mid-20s she took up songwriting, but her pieces fell dormant for 10 years before she actually started to release her own self-written tracks.
Now she’s beginning to boast an expanding catalogue of songs, including tracks such as Forgotten Stories and Sweetness. The latter is a great example of the kind of positive messages that you can take from Flo’s music.
Discussing the inspiration behind Sweetness, Flo said: “It’s about how you need to put more sweet things into your life. How you need to be gentle to yourself. How you need to be kind to yourself.
“It’s about just being grateful for what you have.”
How does a track like this come to life? Well, according to Flo it’s a somewhat ‘curious’ process.
She explained: “When I write, it happens as an improvisation. I’m not thinking ‘Oh I want to write about this or about that’ – it’s improvisation.
“It’s from there where I start building a story.”
The process is clearly working for Flo, who performed 50 gigs in 2019 alone. These took place in countries such as Belgium, Holland, France and the place where she usually resides, the UK.
Covid-19
Like many of us, Flo’s life was tipped upside down when the world went into lockdown in March 2020. She’s unfortunately had to cancel and postpone a slew of upcoming gigs, with other dates still up in the air.
Speaking about an upcoming tour with Heaven 17, she confessed: “There’s a big question mark over it.
“The plan is to do these gigs but I don’t know if they are going to happen or be rescheduled.”
There is, however, an unexpected upside. Flo’s using the current challenges to inspire her music – and this is something that fans can expect to hear when she has the opportunity to release more into the world
Speaking about a track that she’s currently writing, Flo – who is half Bulgarian, half Belgian – said: “The lyrics are about when we went into lockdown.
“We were lost in all this, but even with the insecurity it’s going to be OK in the end.”
Luckily for Flo, she’s managed to keep steady during the recent turbulent times by continuing to offer piano lessons. Prior to the pandemic, she was giving these face-to-face in London.
Now – as she temporarily resides with her sister in Nice, France – she’s retained many of her learners by continuing with lessons over Zoom. It’s been a huge success, with many of her students having been more than happy to take her up on the new format.
This is just one way that technology seeps into Flo’s work.
The good from the bad- worldwide networking
She added: “Personally for me, technology is really amazing. For example, I can discover new people that I wouldn’t discover normally – artists from all over the world!”
Flo – whose new single with Last Day Sect, Je Me Réveille, is out now – is also still working alongside other artists thanks to the wonders of modern technology.
She explained: “In terms of writing music, technology makes life really easy.
“Here in France, on my home keyboard, I can write and collaborate with people from all over the world. I think it’s amazing.”
There is, unfortunately, a downside. While Flo’s own music is available on streaming services such as Spotify and YouTube, she’s conscious of the fact that it often comes with financial limitations.
She said: “On one side it’s brilliant because you have access to so many different artists. But on the other side it’s very difficult for artists to make a living with that.
“It’s really good to have that but as artists we need to find other ways to sell music. Spotify can’t be the only platform, even if it is the most important platform at the moment.”
This, however, won’t dampen Flo’s optimism about what can be achieved in the music industry. The bilingual pianist believes there’s room for artists to come together and ride out the waves they are currently facing.
After such testing times, it’s honourable that she’s calling upon those in the creative arts to ‘unite’ – as well as giving a gentle nudge to the government to provide appropriate assistance.
Flo said: “I wish there was more support for artists and all the people working in culture. We need help. We need to be together.”
While the future does remain uncertain, it’s musicians like Flo who should provide a degree of positivity about what lies ahead – especially as it relates to the music industry.