Bettina Pohle has been singing all her life. Born in Berlin, she started taking piano lessons at age 6, later adding flute and voice to her music education. She sang with the Berliner Konzertchor for years, before leaving for the United States in 1986, where she studied literature and voice at the University of Georgia, placing 2nd at the classical student competition NATS the same year, and concentrating on oratory performances as a soprano soloist.
After moving to California, she continued her studies in literature, graduating with a Ph.D. in from UC Berkeley, California in 1994. While studying, Bettina continued to sing in classical and contemporary music ensembles, among them Anthony Pasqua's Perfect Fifth Chamber Choir and Robert Geary's The San Francisco Chamber Singers . Eventually she switched to vocal jazz, when - after working with pianist Ellen Hoffmann and participating in a workshop with Mark Murphy - she joined Bill Ganz’s UC Vocal Jazz Ensemble, with whom she also went on tour to Hawaii. She was given the University of California Chorale Ensembles': Award for Greatest Musical Achievement, 1993-1994 . Due to her vocal qualities, Bettina also worked in the Bay Area as a sought-after voice-over artist for many years. From 1995-1997, Bettina was employed as Asst. Prof. in the Humanities at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in San Francisco, California.
After 12 years in the US, Bettina returned to Germany, where she has been running the Berliner Zukunftssalon (www.berlinerzukunftssalon.de) ever since and continues to teach US-American college students. After pausing to raise her two daughters Morghan and Avril, Bettina picked up singing jazz again in 2008, this time concentrating on solo vocal jazz, and she has since been working with the Jazz pianist, percussionist, teacher and friend Ralf Ruh and studying with the husband-wife jazz musicians/teachers team Connie Moore (voc) & Reggie Moore (piano) in Berlin.
Bettina partook in: 2009 jazz vocal master class with Iris Reigner/Jörg Seidel in Austria 2010 master class “Jazz Improvisation and Beyond” with Celine Rudoph 2010 25th Berliner Jazztreff
contact: bettina.pohle@t-online.de
