Aleka Potinga

Aleka is a Romanian vocalist, cellist, composer and lyricist who lives in Dublin, Ireland. She has spent 20 years studying music, years that gave her a Bachelor of Arts in cello performance with the highest distinction, at the National University of Music Bucharest, and a B.A in Vocal Jazz performance, graduated with First Class Honors Degree in Dublin, Newpark Music Centre.  She is grateful to all the workshops, masterclasses and courses she has attended and to all her teachers like Ronan Guilfoyle, Phil Ware, Amy London, Winand Gabor, Luiza Zan, Sorin Romanescu, Mircea Tiberian, Diana Ketler, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Razvan Popovici, Bernhard Naoki Hedenborg, Adrian Mantu, Razvan Suma, Marin Cazacu and many others.   She has won numerous prizes at all sorts of music competitions, which has inspirited her and convinced her that music is her way. And to all this, add all the life experience of a woman in her late twenties, experience that is the real print in one’s music, as a contemporary jazz musician. She collaborated with different jazz/pop/bossa-nova groups around Dublin playing in Sugarclub, National Concert Hall-Kevin Barry Room, The Liberty Hall, Twisted Pepper, Bello Bar, Anseo.

If you go to her concerts, you will find out that Aleka is an alchemist. Her inspiration is taken from Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Chet Baker, Wayne Shorter, Michael Jackson, Bjork, Gretchen Parlato or even Debussy. The study of classical music and the cello playing has brought her the rigor she needs to keep on improving.

Her voice became an infusion of styles after looking deeper into bell canto, Oriental music or soul music. She has always wanted to bridge the gap between different music genres, a mix of Latin grooves and Oriental modes can be heard in her songs. When it comes to original compositions, her favorite part is writing the lyrics. The main character in her songs is a little lost girl who feels sad and lost sometimes, but never gives up trying to find her way; the girl is a character inspired from her own childhood. In her project, Aleka includes arrangements of Michael Jackson’s songs like I Can’t help it or Human Nature, old loved standards (My fav things, Afro Blue), Nick Drake’s Riverman.

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