The blind musician singing in the face of adversity

An award-winning singer, who was born with severely impaired vision, has said there is "so much that can be gained by inclusion and diversity".

Folk musician Elena Piras is originally from Sardinia, Italy, and now lives in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, where she has recorded her latest single.

In addition to her visual disability, she was also left with severe hearing loss after being caught up in the 7/7 London bombings in 2005.

Speaking to the BBC, she said she continues to pursue her music career despite the obstacles and is now fundraising for her third album.

Piras sang in choirs from the age of seven and has performed on national TV in Italy.

She said she came to England in 1995 at the age of 18, after finding out about The Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford.

"I knew that the opportunities for visually impaired people in my country were not amazing," she said. "We had very, very basic provision for anything and it was a fight to obtain it as well."

While her parents were "not very happy" about the move, Piras said she always wanted to be "as independent as possible".

Piras said her visual impairment was "part of my life, but it's not my life", adding that people were "not even willing to listen to what I can do".

She said: "I really didn't know that there was a problem with me being blind and music, maybe my talent always gave me the bypass.

"People saw my visual impairment first and they still do. As soon as they discovered that, they closed their eyes.

"We have legislation in this country that should help, but it's not implemented and that is a real shame for everybody because there's so much that can be gained by inclusion and diversity in every single field."

On 7 July 2005, Piras was at King's Cross Station and heard the blast of the Piccadilly Line bomb as it detonated in the tunnel between the station and Russell Square.

She said: "It was just a nightmare day and I remember someone trying to put me in a taxi.

"The first taxi driver didn't want to travel to the area where I lived because it was too close."

Afterwards, she said she started to become "very irritated" in noisy places and had difficulty harmonising when she sang.

She moved to Scotland and a hearing test in Glasgow showed she had lost 60% of her hearing, she said, adding: "For someone who's visually impaired, that's a lot."

The musician went on to live in the Highlands, and later in the Shetlands, where she studied Scots and Gaelic traditional music.

She said: "I really wanted to learn it and I discovered that singing in a language, especially in Gaelic, it wasn't enough - I had to learn the language if I wanted to sing at a certain level.

"It was just incredible. I met so many amazing people and learned so much."

Piras said she "fell in love" in the feelings the music conveyed, as well as "the love for the land" and its traditions.

Her new single, recorded at Shaken Oak studios in Witney, Oxfordshire, is Shetland lullaby Baloo Balilli.

She said it was a song she learned in Shetland and the team behind her recording includes musicians such as Mercury Prize nominated drummer and percussionist Greig Stewart.

"We met for our rehearsal and this was the first song that we actually played together, almost straight away it was amazing," Piras said.