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Chiara Izzi

Chiara is an award-winning jazz singer, composer from Italy who has been based in New York City since 2014, three years after Quincy Jones awarded her first prize in the 2011 Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition. In April 2020 she also won one Independent Music Award for Best Jazz song with Vocals with her composition “Circles Of The Mind". Since arriving, she’s become one of New York’s busiest vocalists, having had already the chance to perform in prominent venues like Iridium, Birdland, The Blue Note, The Kennedy Center, Smalls, 55 Bar, sharing bandstands with such luminaries as Kevin Hays, Leon Parker, Diego Figueiredo, Jeff Hamilton, Aaron Goldberg, Bruce Barth, Eliot Zigmund, Warren Wolf, etc. Chiara first documented her formidable talents on her well-received 2013 debut album, Motifs (Dot-Time), singing in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese on an 11-track program that spanned the American and Brazilian Songbooks, Tango, high-level Euro-Pop, and Mainstream Jazz Vocalese and Scat. She navigates each idiom fluently, on its own terms of engagement, displaying her prodigious vocal instrument, refined musicianship, inherent soulfulness, and ability to convey both emotional transparency and ebullient swing. In an All About Jazz review Michael Bailey praised Chiara as “a force of nature,” while in Jazz Times Travis Rogers described her as “a talent to be heard, admired and anticipated.” Izzi navigates each idiom fluently, on its own terms of engagement, displaying her prodigious vocal instrument, refined musicianship, inherent soulfulness, and ability to convey both emotional transparency and ebullient swing. How that talent has evolved and blossomed since Chiara moved to New York is apparent on her latest releases: Live In Bremen (Dot Time Records/2022) that embodies a classical richness enhanced by Izzi’s stylistic method of blending her lyrics and languages, and Across The Sea (Jando/2019), a cooperative project with pianist Kevin Hays who says about Chiara: “There was a sense of sincerity and honesty — a lack of artifice. She has an inner strength that I think is rare”. Delivering a vocal that carries a warm, Mediterranean quality Izzi acknowledges that experiencing music in a highly inspiring place like New York City brings out her best assets as a storyteller, musician, and human being. “It’s very important for me to make music as a peacemaker, to work creating bridges between different worlds, to put different cultures in communication starting from the music.” says Chiara.

Awards

- Award winner at The Independent Music Awards in the Jazz with Vocals song category, USA (with her composition "Circles Of The Mind") — 2020 - First Prize at Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition, Montreux, Switzerland (awarded first prize by Quincy Jones, President of the jury of that year) — 2011 - First Prize at Lucca Jazz Donna Contest, Lucca, Italy — 2010 - Third Prize at Chicco Bettinardi Contest, Piacenza, Italy — 2010


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Album Review

Chiara Izzi: Motifs

Read "Motifs" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Segnamoci il suo nome perchè ne sentiremo parlare. Chiara Izzi supera in modo brillante il debutto discografico e, se avrà pazienza e determinazione, raggiungerà alti obiettivi. Nonostante la giovane età, il suo curriculum è già ricco di riconoscimenti prestigiosi, come la vittoria nel 2011 al Montreux Jazz Festival Vocal Competition, la selezione finale al Voicingers Festival di Zory e premi in vari concorsi nazionali. Canta dall'età di 17 anni e s'è “fatta le ossa" ...

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“Sister, you are very very talented!” - Quincy Jones.

"A force of nature" - Michael Bailey, All About Jazz. "A talent to be heard, admired and anticipated" - Travis Rogers, Jazz Times.

"Izzi has a wonderful range of expression, singing assuredly in three languages, sometimes with a girlish tinge that echoes Emiliana Torrini or almost Blossom Dearie.” - Jazz Journal.

"Immediate and unfiltered, Izzi's performances lie all the more exposed for the open setting.." Suzanne Lorge, Downbeat.

"Whispers of wonder" George W

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Live in Bremen

Dot Time Records
2022

buy

Across The Sea

Jando Music/ Via Veneto Jazz
2019

buy

Motifs

Dot Time Records
2013

buy

Videos

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