Chiara Izzi

Acclaimed Jazz Vocalist Chiara is an award-winning jazz singer and composer from Italy based in New York City since 2014, three years after Quincy Jones awarded her first prize in the 2011 Montreuz Jazz Festival Vocal Competition. In 2020 she also won one Independent Music Award for Best Jazz song with vocals with her composition Circles of the Mind. She perfectly blends traditional Italian music with jazz, Mediterranean and pop sounds to create a dynamic and heartwarming show, singing and telling stories in four languages (Italian, English, Portuguese and Spanish). Chiara 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.” 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. "Sister, you are very very talented!” - QUINCY JONES "A talent to be heard, admired and anticipated" - Travis Rogers, JAZZ TIMES