Stacey Kent is a Grammy nominated Anglo-American jazz singer.
Kent attended Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and moved to England after her graduation. While studying at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she met the tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, whom she married on August 9, 1991.
In the early 1990s, Kent began her professional career singing regularly in a popular nightspot, Café Boheme in London's Soho. After two or three years, Kent began opening for established jazz acts across the road at the Ronnie Scott's nightclub in London.
Her first CD, Close Your Eyes, was released in 1997. She has released seven CDs as of 2010, and has been also featured on Tomlinson's albums, most recently The Lyric (2005), which won "Album of the Year" at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards.
Kent's music has been championed by critic and jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, and she won the 2001 British Jazz Award and the 2002 BBC Jazz Award for Best Vocalist. She has also presented jazz programmes on BBC Radio 2 and 3.
At the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards, Tomlinson, upon receiving the award for "Album of the Year" for The Lyric, announced that Kent had signed with Blue Note records label.
Kent's album, The Boy Next Door achieved Gold album status in France in September, 2006. Breakfast On The Morning Tram (2007) achieved Platinum album status in France in November, 2007 and Gold album status in Germany in February, 2008 and was nominated for Best Vocal Jazz Album at the 2009 Grammy Awards.
Kent appeared in Ian McKellen's 1995 film version of Richard III, singing a jazz version of Christopher Marlowe's poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.
Booker Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the liner notes to Kent's 2003 album, In Love Again. Ishiguro has co-written four of the songs on the fall 2007 Blue Note album Breakfast on the Morning Tram. One of the songs written by Ishiguro, "The Ice Hotel," with music composed by Tomlinson won first prize in the International Songwriting Competition in April 2008.
On 31 March 2009 Kent received the National Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) - a government decoration - in recognition of her contribution to the arts, from French Culture Minister Christine Albanel.
Stacey's latest album, Raconte-Moi, released on March 22, 2010, (Blue Note/EMI) is an all-French album.
Stacey Kent (South Orange, Nueva Jersey, 27 de marzo de 1968) es una cantante angloamericana de jazz, nominada a un Grammy.
Kent estuvo matriculada en la Newark Academy de Livingston, en Nueva Jersey.2 Se graduó por el Sarah Lawrence College de Nueva York, y se trasladó a Inglaterra tras su graduación. Mientras estudiaba en la Guildhall School of Music and Drama de Londres, conoció al saxo tenor Jim Tomlinson, con quien se casó el 9 de agosto de 1991.
A comienzos de los noventa, empezó su carrera profesional cantando regularmente en un popular nightspot, el londinense Café Boheme del Soho.
El 31 de marzo de 2009 recibió, de manos de la Ministra de cultura francesa Christine Albanel, la Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, una condecoración del gobierno francés como reconocimiento a su contribución a las artes.
Tracy Chapman (born March 30, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her singles "Fast Car", "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You", "Give Me One Reason" and "Telling Stories". She is a multi-platinum and four-time Grammy Award-winning artist.
Tracy Chapman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she was raised by her mother. Despite not having much money, her mother recognized Tracy's love of music and bought her a ukulele when Tracy was just three. Tracy Chapman began playing guitar and writing songs at the age of eight. She says that she may have been first inspired to play the guitar by the television show Hee Haw.
Chapman was raised Baptist and went to an Episcopal high school. She was accepted into the program "A Better Chance", which helps minority students attend private schools. She graduated from Wooster School in Connecticut and subsequently attended Tufts University. She graduated with a B.A. degree in anthropology and African studies.
In the mid-1990s Chapman dated author Alice Walker. Chapman maintains a strong separation between her personal and professional lives. “I have a public life that’s my work life and I have my personal life,” she said. “In some ways, the decision to keep the two things separate relates to the work I do."
Chapman often performs at and attends charity events such as Make Poverty History, amfAR and AIDS/LifeCycle, to support social causes. She currently lives in San Francisco. She says she enjoys going to the beach, going to the woods, a really good meal with friends, and fresh organic food.
During college, Chapman began busking in Harvard Square and playing guitar in Club Passim and within other coffeehouses in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[citation needed] Another Tufts student, Brian Koppelman, heard Chapman playing and brought her to the attention of his father, Charles Koppelman. Koppelman, who ran SBK Publishing, signed Chapman in 1986. After Chapman graduated from Tufts in 1987, he helped her to sign a contract with Elektra Records.
At Elektra, she released Tracy Chapman (1988). The album was critically acclaimed, and she began touring and building a fanbase. Soon after she performed it at the televised Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert in June 1988, Chapman's "Fast Car" began its rise on the US charts; it became a Number 6 pop hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending August 27, 1988. "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution", the follow-up, charted at Number 75 and was followed by "Baby Can I Hold You", which peaked at Number 48. The album sold well, going multi-platinum and winning three Grammy Awards, including an honor for Chapman as Best New Artist. Later in 1988, Chapman was a featured performer on the worldwide Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour. According to the VH1 website, "her album helped usher in the era of political correctness — along with 10,000 Maniacs and R.E.M., Chapman's liberal politics proved enormously influential on American college campuses in the late '80s".
Her follow-up album Crossroads (1989) was less commercially successful, but still achieved platinum status. By 1992's Matters of the Heart, Chapman was playing to a small and devoted audience. Her fourth album, New Beginning (1995) proved successful, selling over three million copies in the U.S. The album included the hit single "Give Me One Reason", which won the 1997 Grammy for Best Rock Song and became Chapman's most successful single to date, peaking at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Her Telling Stories (2000) featured more of a rock sound than folk. Its hit single, "Telling Stories", received heavy airplay on European radio stations and on Adult Alternative and Hot AC stations in the United States. Chapman toured Europe and the US in 2003 in support of her sixth album, Let It Rain (2002).
To support her seventh studio album, Where You Live (2005), Chapman toured major US cities in October and throughout Europe over the remainder of the year. The "Where You Live" tour was extended into 2006; the 28-date European tour featured summer concerts in Germany, Italy, France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the UK, Russia and more. On June 5, 2006, she performed at the 5th Gala of Jazz in Lincoln Center, New York, and in a session at the 2007 TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference in Monterey, California.
Chapman was commissioned by the American Conservatory Theater to compose music for its production of Athol Fugard's Blood Knot, a play on apartheid in South Africa, staged in early 2008.
Atlantic Records released Chapman's eighth studio album, Our Bright Future (2008). Chapman made a 26-date solo tour of Europe. She returned to tour Europe and selected North American cities during the summer of 2009. She was backed by Joe Gore on guitars, Patrick Warren on keyboards, and Dawn Richardson on percussion.
Tracy Chapman (n. Cleveland, Ohio, 30 de marzo de 1964) es una cantante estadounidense ganadora de varios premios Grammy y conocida por el éxito de canciones como "Fast Car", "Talkin' Bout a Revolution", "Baby Can I Hold You" y "Give Me One Reason".
Nacida en Cleveland, Tracy Chapman comenzó a tocar la guitarra y a escribir canciones con tan sólo 11 años. Fue aceptada en la organización orientada a reclutar niños afrodescendientes con aptitudes para destacar en diferentes campos, por lo que entró a estudiar en la Wooster School y posteriormente en la Tufts University de Medford, Massachusetts.
Durante sus estudios universitarios, Chapman comenzó a tocar en la calle y en cafés de la ciudad de Cambridge en Massachusetts. Tras su graduación fichó por la compañía Elektra Records, lanzando el disco Tracy Chapman en 1988. El álbum fue muy bien acogido por la crítica, y ella comenzó una gira donde fue captando a un gran número de fans.
Tras su actuación en el concierto homenaje a los 70 años de Nelson Mandela, la canción Fast Car comenzó a subir en las listas americanas hasta alcanzar el Top 10. El álbum alcanzaría ventas elevadas llegando al disco de platino y Tracy lograría tres grammys en la edición de ese año.
Su siguiente álbum Crossroads lanzado en 1989 tuvo menos éxito comercial que su predecesor y para el siguiente Matters of the Heart Chapman preparó una gira en recintos de poca capacidad para recalcar el aire intimista del disco. Para sorpresa de la industria musical su cuarto álbum New Beginning, fue todo un éxito comercial que llegó a vender 3 millones de copias tan sólo en Estados Unidos. Este álbum incluía el hit Give Me One Reason que ganó el Grammy a la mejor canción de Rock del año y se convirtió en el single de mayor éxito de Chapman hasta la fecha.
El siguiente álbum fue Telling Stories editado en el año 2000, y que supuso un giro hacia el rock frente al sonido folk dominante en los discos precedentes. Del disco el single Telling Stories fue muy difundido en las radiodifusoras europeas. Su sexto disco fue Let It Rain lanzado en 2002. En septiembre de 2005 lanzó el disco Where You Live y en noviembre de 2008, Our Bright Future.
Pink Martini is a 13-member "little orchestra" from Portland, Oregon, formed in 1994 by pianist Thomas M. Lauderdale. They draw inspiration from music from all over the world – crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop.
Pink Martini has twelve musicians (and sometimes travels with string sections), and performs its multilingual repertoire on concert stages and with symphony orchestras throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Australia and New Zealand and North America. Pink Martini made its European debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 and its orchestral debut with the Oregon Symphony in 1998 under the direction of Norman Leyden. Since then, the band has gone on to play with over 30 orchestras around the world, including multiple engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the Boston Pops, the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center and the BBC Concert Orchestra in London. Other appearances include the grand opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with return sold-out engagements for New Year’s Eve 2003, 2004 & 2008; two sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall; the opening party of the remodeled Museum of Modern Art in NYC; the Governor’s Ball at the 80th Annual Academy Awards in 2008; and the opening of the 2008 Sydney Festival in Australia.
Lauderdale met China Forbes, Pink Martini’s lead vocalist, at Harvard. He was studying history and literature while she was studying English literature and painting. Late at night, they would break into the lower common room in their college dormitory and sing arias by Puccini and Verdi – and the occasional campy Barbara Streisand cover –thus sealing their creative collaboration. Three years after graduating, Lauderdale called Forbes who was living in New York City, where she’d been writing songs and playing guitar in her own folk-rock project, and asked her to join Pink Martini. They began to write songs together for the band. Their first song “Sympathique”– with the chorus “Je ne veux pas travailler”(”I don’t want to work”) – became an overnight sensation in France, and was even nominated for “Song of the Year” at France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards.
Pink Martini’s debut album Sympathique was released independently in 1997 on the band’s own label Heinz Records (named after Lauderdale’s dog), and quickly became an international phenomenon, garnering the group nominations for “Song of the Year” and “Best New Artist”in France’s Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2000.
In October 2004, the group released its second album, Hang on Little Tomato.
In May 2007, the group released its third album, Hey Eugene!.
Their fourth studio album, Splendor in the Grass (album) was released on October 27, 2009.
Sympathique, Hang on Little Tomato and Hey Eugene! have all gone gold in France, Canada, Greece and Turkey, and Pink Martini's records have collectively sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.
On New Year's Eve 2005, Pink Martini performed live at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. This performance was aired live on National Public Radio's Toast of the Nation, and in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting was recorded for a live DVD and later broadcast on US public broadcasting and French television. The DVD has been rereleased to retail as Discover the World: Live in Concert, featuring not only the full concert, but several vignettes and a short documentary of the band's history.
The band has collaborated and performed with Jimmy Scott, Carol Channing, Henri Salvador, Jane Powell, Chavela Vargas, Georges Moustaki, Michael Feinstein, DJ Dimitri from Paris, clarinetist and conductor Norman Leyden, Hiroshi Wada, DJ Johnny Dynell and several drag queens from New York City, among others. On June 1, 2007, the band appeared on the long-running BBC Two Later with Jools Holland TV music program. On June 14, 2007, Pink Martini performed on Late Show with David Letterman, performing "Hey Eugene".
Pink Martini played Walt Disney Concert Hall on New Year's Eve for the first two years it was open (2003/4 and 2004/5). They returned to play NYE there again in 2008/9.
In May 2009, the band recorded three concerts with the Oregon Symphony under the direction of Carlos Kalmar for the band’s fifth album … a symphonic record which is slated for a 2011 release.
Pink Martini songs appear in such films as In the Cut, Nurse Betty, Josie and the Pussycats, Tortilla Soup, Shanghai Kiss and Mr. & Mrs. Smith and have been used on television shows such as Dead Like Me, The Sopranos and The West Wing, among others.[citation needed] Their song "Una notte a Napoli" is an integral part of the Italian movie Mine Vaganti (2010), by the Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek. The song "No Hay Problema" is included as background/setup music for Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 and was also used as the background/setup music for an early build of Windows Longhorn, now known as Windows Vista.
In February 2011, the group's lead singer, China Forbes, recorded a video greeting to the European Space Agency's Italian astronaut, Paolo Nespoli, and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri, on board the International Space Station. The astronauts were preparing to oversee the docking of ESA's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) cargo vessel, Johannes Kepler, which took place at 17:08 CET on 24 February. The greeting was set to the sound track of Dosvedanya Mio Bombino - one of Pink Martini's signature songs - and was mixed with footage of the actual docking.
Pink Martini es una "pequeña orquesta" de Portland, Oregon, fundada en 1994 por el pianista Thomas M. Lauderdale. Pink Martini interpreta diferentes géneros musicales como la música latina, música lounge, música clásica, o el jazz. Su música ha sido descrita muchas veces como "vintage", una descripción que muestra el contenido, el estilo y la duración de las canciones que han inspirado muchas de sus canciones.
Originalmente crecieron juntos para en representaciones en Portland, Pink Martini realizó su debut europeo en el Festival de Cine de Cannes. Durante el 2003 el grupo realizó una gira que incluyó países como Francia, España, Portugal, Bélgica, Suiza, Mónaco, Grecia, Turquía, Perú, Taiwán, Líbano y los Estados Unidos, realizando conciertos propios o como acompañantes de otros grupos. Las letras de sus canciones están cantadas en diferentes idiomas: inglés, español, francés, italiano, portugués, japonés e incluso en árabe o griego moderno, en algunas ocasiones.
El álbum debut de Pink Martini, Sympathique, fue producido por el propio sello del grupo, Heinz Records, en el 1997, del cual se han vendido más de 1.300.000 copias por todo el mundo. La canción con el mismo nombre se presentó en el CD "World Lounge" Putumayo World Music.
En octubre de 2004, el grupo grabó su segundo disco, Hang on Little Tomato. Durante el periodo que va de su primer a su segundo disco, el cantante Pepe Raphael dejó el grupo para concentrarse en su segundo grupo, Pepe and the Bottle Blondes. La cantante principal China Forbes continuó escribiendo canciones con Lauderdale, ayudando a la banda a tomar una dirección más original.
Las canciones de Pink Martini han aparecido en diversas películas como En carne viva (In the Cat), "Persiguiendo a Betty" (Nurse Betty), "Josie y las Melódicas" (Josie and the Pussycats), Tortilla Soup, Shanghai Kiss y "El Sr. y la Sra. Smith" (Mr. & Mrs. Smith), y han sido usadas igualmente en series de televisión "Tan muertos como yo" (Dead Like Me), "Los Soprano" (The Sopranos) y "El ala oeste" (The West Wing), entre otros[cita requerida]. La canción "No hay problema" está incluida como música de fondo para Windows Server 2003 de Microsoft, así como en Windows Longhorn, ahora conocido como Windows Vista.
Durante la noche de Año Nuevo del año 2005, Pink Martini actuó en vivo en el Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall en Portland, Oregón. Su actuación se retransmitió en vivo en el Toast of the Nation del National Public Radio, y fue grabado para un directo en DVD y posteriormente retransmitido durante la emisión pública americana US public broadcasting y para la televisión francesa.
Debido a lo extenso de la banda, Pink Martini tiene problemas encontrando locales adecuados para tocar en algunas ciudades. Gracias a la ayuda de un amigo, Norman Leyden, empezaron sus representaciones tocando con algunas orquesta por todo el país, mientras crecían sus fans. El 1 de junio de 2007, la banda apareció durante el programa musical de televisión Later with Jools Holland del canal BBC Two. A mediados de septiembre de 2007, el grupo fue al Hollywood Bowl para realizar tres actuaciones que incluyeron a los artistas invitados Carol Channing y Henri Salvador.
El 14 de junio de 2007, Pink Martini actuó en el Late Show with David Letterman, interpretando Hey Eugene.
