Sage Petrocelli has always been prepared to go against the grain, itching to create something new. Known as “sage ella” in indie circles, the junior music production major has been pushing the envelope since she was a child.

She said she was first introduced to music by her grandmother, a classical pianist. Immersed in a rather strict music tradition, sage ella didn’t let that deter her capacity for innovation. Where others saw boundaries and rules, sage ella saw opportunity.

The singer-songwriter said she began producing her own music at the age of 12 with the encouragement of her piano teacher, who saw her potential. Her first release, “Dear Daisy,” has accrued over 440,000 streams on Spotify since its release in 2019, which established sage ella as an emerging talent.

sage ella said her creative energy comes from her ability to tap into a vast range of influences, experiences and emotions as she creates.

“My music is a big amalgamation of everything I listen to,” she said. “Everything subconsciously influences me. I listen to so much music that it all kind of funnels into me.”

While pop seems to be evolving toward a more confessional genre of music, sage ella said she is more interested in capturing the universal emotions that tether disparate experiences — her own experiences or those of her listeners.

“I’ve never really been one to write about a single event,” sage ella said. “I like to think about my songs as collages of many different experiences that I’m having at the same time.”

sage ella is enchanted by all facets of song creation, from songwriting to production. Her love affair with the entire process has translated into constant experimentation, breaking new ground with every song, she said.

“I learn a lot from her,” said Asher Belsky, a frequent collaborator of sage ella’s and a junior majoring in popular music. “She’s just Sage — a magical unicorn who’s tapped into eight billion different types of music and has all these references going in her brain always, so she can bring them all together. She doesn’t really sound like anyone else.”

sage ella’s ability to innovate her own unique sound is due to her willingness to test the limits of her artistic capacity in pursuit of her authentic vision, Belsky said. Inspired by Alex Ross Perry’s 2024 documentary “Pavements,” Belsky and sage ella embarked on a songwriting session to create their unreleased track, “Salt.”

“We were tracking guitars,” Belsky said.“[sage ella] grabs a screwdriver, and she starts using it like a slide, and then I also use it like a slide. And it’s the main melody of the instrumental part of the song. It’s a metal screwdriver, just like playing on the guitar strings, like a flathead. No one else would do this.”

The screwdriver-as-a-flathead story isn’t the only example of sage ella’s ability to playfully innovate in the production phase. The sounds of sage ella’s most recent release, “Gia,” are informed by the use of white noise samples on the track.

“This song, production wise, is fairly different from a lot of stuff I’ve made in the past, which is why I love it so much. I feel like I was able to draw bridges through more electronic sounds mixed with indie folk,” sage ella said.

Despite praise from her peers and collaborators, sage ella said that she struggles with imposter syndrome. She is, however, emboldened by her constant curiosity, the impulse to reinvent urging her forward.

“Having enough confidence to experiment is really important, and not being afraid to let those ideas out, because this song could easily have never come out,” sage ella said.

sage ella’s patchwork approach to music derives from her increasing confidence in her own genuine musical and artistic preferences, said Iris Bahn-Logan, a friend of sage ella’s and a junior majoring in media arts and practice. Bahn-Logan said sage ella’s genre-defying music, capable of appealing to a wide array of audiences, unites people from different walks of life.

“Sage and I were just wandering around downtown, and we ended up stumbling into this barbershop,” Bahn-Logan said. “I don’t really know how it happened, but they ended up handing her a guitar. She started playing a couple of her songs for everyone in the salon. And so we’re all sitting in a semi-circle around her, and it was just people from all over downtown L.A. It was a very profound moment of music as a connector between people.”

Similar to her attitude toward music, sage ella is allowing her creative inclinations to propel her toward her next project, whether that be songwriting, producing, or both. She said her next goal is writing a full-length album.

“I just want to stay creative and keep having fun making music for the most part,” sage ella said. “Anything that comes my way through doing what I love, I’m pretty happy doing.”