Stella Galanti: Juggling Deadlines and Dreams
There’s something refreshing about an artist who isn’t pretending to have it all mapped out. Stella Galanti is still in the process of discovering her sound, her voice, and her place in the music industry, and she’s completely honest about it.
At just 19 years-old, Galanti is learning to balance life as a student at the University of Wisconsin- Madison and as a musician, passionate about writing music that feels special to her.
Blending pop melodies with her Georgia roots, Galanti describes her sound simply: pop-country. But the story behind that sound goes back much further than any polished track or social media clip.
She started writing songs at just eight years old, sitting at a piano or strumming a guitar, long before she ever considered what those songs might mean.
“I wasn’t really thinking about lyrics yet,” she says. That changed in high school, when life, and all the emotions that come with it, started to hit harder. With that came the confidence to actually say something.
At her high school, Galanti got an early taste of what it means to create in a real studio setting. Her high school had just built a recording studio, and she found herself at the center of it, learning how to record and produce her own music. Now that she is at school, access to those resources are not the same,
“It has definitely been hard to work on my music from a production standpoint,” Galanti explained.
From a broader standpoint, Galanti revealed another struggle. “I always listen to songs and think, ‘I wish I wrote that,’” she admits.
A sentiment that seems to be growing in the industry where artists are getting younger and more successful much quicker. But instead of letting that comparison take over, she’s learning to reframe it. Every song she writes, she says, is still her own, and that’s what makes Galanti special.
That mindset carries over into how she handles building an audience. In an era where numbers can feel like everything, Galanti is choosing not to obsess over them. “I just kind of write and make the music I want to write,” she says. Her biggest supporters are already listening, already invested. The rest, she believes, will come with time.
Like many emerging artists, Galanti has turned to TikTok as a way to share her music and connect with listeners. After posting singing videos for years, she’s only recently started putting out her own original work.
No viral moment yet, but she’s not ruling it out. “I feel like one day I’ll post a random video and it will magically go viral,” she says, half-joking, half-hopeful. That unpredictability is part of the game.
For now, though, her biggest balancing act isn’t algorithms, it’s college. Between classes, assignments, and everything else that comes with being a student, finding time to create can be difficult. But she doesn’t see school as something that’s holding her back, just something she has to work around.
If there’s one thing Galanti is certain about, it’s this: there’s no easy way to do this. The music industry is built on rejection as much as it is on success, and she’s realistic about what lies ahead.
“You’re going to get 100 ‘no’s’ before you get that one ‘yes,’” she says.
In the meantime, she’s doing what she’s always done, writing, experimenting, and slowly but surely figuring it out. And if her journey so far is any indication, that process might just be the most important part.