Writing, singing and releasing can heal so much
May Love is the artist moniker of Majella Siezen, a sweet sensitive songwriter with a delicately expressive voice and a penchant for emotional storytelling. She has performed extensively around Europe and released music in various genres, with the aim of inspiring and uplifting listeners.
A Coromandel native, Majella Siezen was raised in the picturesque hills of Manaia, a 20-minute drive south of Coromandel Town. Her parents, who are German and Dutch, are the gardeners for the renowned Mana Retreat Centre. Her older sisters are circus acrobats who perform together as the Twisty Twins. Majella says growing up on the peninsula really shaped her songwriting.
“A lot of what I write and sing about is inspired by the beautiful nature here, so that’s a huge connection I have to the land and the ocean. That’s the main connection I would make. I feel really blessed to have grown up here, and to have the space and the freedom to soak up the energy from nature and infuse it into my lyrics and my songs.”
Majella was drawn to music at an early age, spurred by a deep affinity with it and a desire to differentiate herself from her acrobat sisters.
“As a kid, I liked having something different from what my sisters were doing. People would ask: ‘Oh, do you do acrobatics too?’
And I’m like: ‘No.’ Music is something different, but it’s more ‘my thing’. I’ve always liked to sing as far as I can remember, and I noticed that it helped me. It has a therapeutic effect.
Writing, singing and releasing can heal so much.”
Majella’s family didn’t often listen to music, she says, but certain songs filtered through. She recalls a Joan Baez song on a family cassette tape as one of her earliest experiences of being touched by music.
“She was the first singer I remember listening to and being like: ‘Wow. I want to be like that.’ I don’t remember which song it was, but I always wanted to listen to that, even though I don’t remember the lyrics or what was being sung, but I just loved the raw emotion in the vocals. I haven’t listened to her since then.”
Majella wrote her first song at age 11 after she got her first guitar.
“It was something really cheesy,” she laughs. “Like: ‘I love the birds, I love the trees.’ Something about my love for nature. It’s sort of embarrassing now to think about, but we all start somewhere.”
Majella kept writing songs while attending Thames High School. After graduating, she was off to see the world.
“I went on a solo tour to Europe, just with my guitar and backpack. I was travelling around and making street music, busking to earn my money to be able to travel. I went to Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands.”
Majella remained in Denmark for the year 2016, studying at Musik og Teaterhøjskolen, a folk high school which specialised in performing arts.
“You live at the school, and there are rooms there, and you’re very integrated in the whole school experience. That was a very beautiful experience, and I would do it again.”
Following her study, Majella briefly moved to Germany before embarking on her next musical adventure: a performing residency at a hotel in Cyprus, followed by a similar one in Crete.
“That was a very different thing. It was totally out of my comfort zone, and I was thinking: ‘What am I doing?’ But it ended up being a really cool experience, where I got to learn a lot as well! It was a team of eight people in the hotel. During the day we did activities with the guests, but at night it was like singing and musicals and cabaret.”
She ended this residency in 2020, returning to Germany with plans of a European music tour. These plans were foiled by the advent of Covid.
“Everything which I had just organised got cancelled.
It was more like just resigning to the reality of what was going on, because I couldn’t do what I’d planned to do, and also my flight to New Zealand had been cancelled so I was stuck in Germany, but I had to make the most of it.”
She used that time to record new music, experimenting with electropop and hip-hop.
“That was fun, but it was a very different era than what I started with and what I’m doing now again. Experimentation phase, as some people call it.”
Majella returned to her family home in Manaia at the end of 2024. While on the peninsula, she has been prolific with releasing acoustic folk-pop music. Her songwriting goals involve focusing more on uplifting emotions.
“Up until now, a lot of my songs have come from a place of darkness or despair or sadness but then transformed it. I have the feeling I’ve done that enough, and I don’t want to keep just writing sad songs. There’s a lot more than just that, and I don’t wanna make people sad!
It’s nice when people are very touched by a song, but I still would prefer people leaving a concert of mine or listening to a song with a deeper feeling of resonance, not just sadness but also feeling uplifted or inspired. Empowering people to be themselves is probably the main thing I want to keep doing with my music.”
Image Credits: Tanja Cuber, Jillian Marleen, Finigan Willem
Words by Nur Peach
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