Diane Nalini - Biography

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Diane Nalini started singing at the age of three, and never stopped. Born in Montreal to Belgian and Goan parents, the singer/songwriter's multilingual repertoire draws from her lifelong passion for jazz, French Chanson, Brazilian popular song, and great literature. "She captures jazz at its most sophisticated and joyous level," writes Elle Magazine Canada. Katie Malloch, host of CBC's "Tonic", says: "I just love Diane Nalini's voice. This is a sassy, 'ripe plum in the Italian sun' kind of voice... She has such sweet and effortless pitch, it's beautiful." Diane has given gala performances for President Bill Clinton and Sir Paul McCartney. She was one of two finalists for the UK's Young Jazz Vocalist of the Year in 2001, and was nominated for the Grand Prix de Jazz General Motors at the 2002 Montreal International Jazz Festival. Her latest album, "Songs of Sweet Fire" is a collection of fifteen sonnets and songs from the plays of William Shakespeare, set to her original jazz, blues, and pop music.

Diane Nalini - Longer bio

Diane Nalini's latest project puts a uniquely modern spin on the words of William Shakespeare. Her latest CD "Songs of Sweet Fire" is a collection of fifteen sonnets and songs from the plays set to her original jazz, funk, and blues music. "It was very important to me to let the phrasing of the words dictate the style of music I wrote for each song. I decided to set only those songs which were in more modern sounding English, to highlight the timelessness of Shakespeare's words," says the singer of her new compositions. "Songs of Sweet Fire" is Diane's third album.

In a review of Diane's recent performance at the Guelph River Run Center, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record wrote: "A gifted arranger and vocalist... Nalini made an auspicious Guelph concert debut... the highlights were three passages from literature she set to jazz - "Sigh No More" from Much Ado About Nothing, and "The Lover and His Lass" from As You Like It, as well as Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Cradle Song."

In a recent review of "Tales... My Mama Told Me", Irwin Block of the Montreal Gazette wrote: "Diane Nalini has the voice, the phrasing, confidence, clarity and control to make a tune her own and turn it into a nuanced thing of beauty."

Her debut album "After dusk" was described by London's Time Out magazine as "a gorgeous collection, sung with quiet enunciated power". "Her artistry shines through on two wide-ranging albums, After Dusk and the newly released Tales... My Mama Told Me", writes Canada's Globe and Mail.

While breathing new life into jazz standards, she also performs her own compositions, as well as Brazilian songs and French chanson.

She has performed for President Bill Clinton - from whom she received a personal letter of thanks, as well as Sir Paul McCartney, the President of Malta, the Canadian High Commissioner to London, and former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. She recently gave concerts at the London, Montreal and Malta Jazz festivals.

Diane was nominated for the Grand Prix de Jazz General Motors at the 2002 Montreal International Jazz Festival, and was one of two finalists for the UK's Young Jazz Vocalist of the Year awards for 2001.

In October 2005, she opened for legendary 3-time Grammy winning songwriter Jimmy Webb at Guelph's River Run Center. More recently, she had the pleasure to perform with the wonderful David Knopfler (founder of 'Dire Straits') for the North American launch of his new album Ship of Dreams.

Other highlights have included performances at the London Jazz Festival (2001), the Montreal International Jazz Festival (2002, 2001, 1994), the Celebrate Toronto Festival (2005), as well as Montreal’s 350th Anniversary Festival (1992). Her songs have received airplay in the UK (BBC Radio 3), as well as Denmark and Brazil. In Canada, her music has been heard coast-to-coast on the CBC programs 'Jazzbeat', 'After Hours', 'Disc Drive', and 'This Morning' with Shelagh Rogers. She has also been featured on Radio-Canada by radio personalities Dan Behrman, Stanley Péan, Dorothée Berryman and André Vigean, on the Espace Musique channel. Diane was interviewed several times on CBC Radio’s 'Morningside' by the late, great Peter Gzowski.

She has taught jazz singing and given jazz workshops at the University of Oxford, and conducted a songwriting workshop at the 3rd annual Millenium Scholarphip "Think Again" conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada. She was recently invited to chair a pannel discussion at the Guelph International Jazz Festival Colloquium (2005) on "Improvisation: risks and responsibilities." Earlier in the summer, she was a guest presenter at a one-day conference on "Art and democracy," hosted by Concordia University's Center for Continuing Education.

Diane studied Chinese watercolour painting and caligraphy for 10 years with the late Virginia Chang. She exhibited and sold paintings with the Montreal-based Ting Sung Group. For her new album, Songs Of Sweet Fire, she painted 16 original watercolour paintings inspired by the mood of the songs. They accompany Shakespeare's lyrics in a full-colour, deluxe 20 page booklet. "I wanted to give something extra to all my wonderful, supportive fans. Something connected to the songs in a unique way."

She is also an accomplished dancer, having performed and studied classical ballet, jazz and modern dance for over 15 years. She was a soloist with Les Ballets de la jeunesse in her late teens. She also studied jazz ballet and modern dance for several years, and performed as a soloist in various shows by Montreal choreographers Sheila Lawrence and Claudine Bouchard. Her most recent performance combining dance and singing was as the female lead in GLA Productions’ staging of "Fame - the musical", at the Old Fire Station Theatre in Oxford in 2000.

Diane went to England on a Rhodes Scholarship and obtained a doctorate from the University of Oxford. She has since returned to Canada and has taken up a faculty position at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

Colour photos on this page by b. jonathan michaels