Support Act for Naturally 7 (@ the London Jazz Festival 2009)

I felt very privileged this year. I had the opportunity to meet many fantastic people and to make great music with them on stage.

Ian Shaw ("Best Jazz Vocalist" at the BBC Jazz Awards in 2007) and the lovely Mary King (Voice Coach - Channel 4) were incredibly creative with the material they taught us for the performance at the Royal Festival Hall. This was a mixture of Jazz and Improvisation.The Voicelab Choir have been given us the amazing opportunity to assemble a vocal ensemble to perform with jazz legend, Ian Shaw, and fill a 30 minute support slot for this show. Although we only rehearsed twice, it worked out quite well!!! I loved it!!!! We were all totally excited to know that we were the Support Act for Naturally 7

Below a picture with Dwight Stewart(Naturally 7)



and myself during the soundcheck



The Sunday before the show was the event "Jazz day" held at the Royal Festival Hall. At the beginning I was not too sure of what to expect but being there was probably one of the most inspiring days ever.
This day-long event offered me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of the jazz voice, exploring ideas of harmony and improvisation and focusing in particular on interpretation of song material, and how to keep it fresh in the 21st century. I was delighted when they announced that we would work with Pete Churchill, Natalie Williams and Guillermo Rozenthuler.



Last but not least I had the opportunity to watch the London Philharmonic Orchestra rehearse while being conducted by the one and only Vladimir Jurowski (Principal Conductor). ...this was absolutely beautiful and they were moments when I wanted to cry .....anyways...

inspired by the beautiful music....
... I had to run home to produce a new track........

..good times!!!!

Peace xxxx

'Performance and Style' Freshers Festival 2009!!!!

Hiya, I have been working with many talented artists for the last 6 weeks and can't wait to perform tonight with Kreative Kaos.
Hope to see you later...xx

I am proud to be Eritrean!!!

This year I had the opportunity to visit my home country "Eritrea" and I did not only have fun (!!!!) but also time to grow mentally and musically in this untouched oasis of a paradise.

I flew in September(just after the tourism season) as I wanted to make sure that I didn't get distracted by people (You know it...clubbing, drinking,..etc)from what I wanted to do "My Music".

Being there was not only a break from facebook (Internet in general...@CAFE was really far and had a slow connection), make up, TV (they had the same news 3 times a day in 3 different languages: English, Arabic and Tigrinya...couldn't be bothered) and £1 trash magazines!!!
Yeah, I had a real Break!!!!!



Don't get me wrong, I do really appreciate the life I've got and I don't take it for granted but now I feel as if we make life harder than it actually is.
Why do we worry so much????

My plan was to go there with my mic, mbox 2 and laptop to record samples...but for some reason my ProTools application wasn't working. I went to Computer specialists in London and Stuttgart (Germany) , but no one was able to figure out what the problem was.....

The week after, when I went back to Germany I found out that Pro Tools 7.4 wasn't working because of the upgraded version of Internet Explorer that I had installed on my laptop....
Even though I was very angry at the beginning (as I spent a lot of money to go to PC specialists and more importantly, the time that I had lost by waiting and thinking)...I was happy that it happened.

It didn't work out the way I planned it, but instead I recorded shots for my "Get down" Music Video and enjoyed a family reunion after 8 years.



I found this really sweet video of Eritrea on youtube.......this is for YOU!!!!



Peace!!!

Input : Output

Over the past 2 months I have had the opportunity to work with some of the finest and most diverse young Music Producers, on the compilation album “Input : Output, London's freshest, up & coming Music Producers.

Gathered from various areas in London, 14 aspiring Singer – Songwriters, Musicians, MC's, DJ's and Music Producer got together from different musical backgrounds to produce this unique album.

We met up twice a week in London's Studio 13 and made use of the extensive range of equipment and Music Programs that were offered. Starting from Pro Tools 7.4, Logic Pro, Reason 4, Cubase 4 to the Micro Korg, MPC 500, Digitech Vocalist, R3 (watch the I/O video).

For my track “My Life” which is featured on the Album, I used various Plug-ins from Pro Tools, drum fills from Reason 4 and a vocal sample from Digitechs' Vocalist.

Digitechs' Vocalist Workstation is one of my favourite performance devices and perhaps the easiest to use. It is a four-voice vocal harmony effects processor designed for live performances and studio applications.

It also contains different programs which enabled me to change a single vocal input to up to a five-part harmony (saves you money for the backing singers). The programs vary from female vocals to male vocals, Pitch correction, backup vocals etc.

For My Life I chose to use the opera setting, which made my voice an octave higher and added a distinctive opera touch to it.

It was absolutely incredible to work with so many artists and a great experience for me.

The Album is now available on iTunes.