Cyrille Aimee
Jazz vocalist Cyrille Aimée (pronounced: "Surreal Emmay") has a culturally rich background -- Dominican and French, Gypsy -- and conservatory training (SUNY Purchase) that help to form the rhythmic and expressive foundation by which a jury of legendary vocalists including Al Jarreau, Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves and Dee Dee Bridgewater judged her to be a finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Vocal Competition in 2010. At the young age of twenty-six, Cyrille has since become one of the hottest young artists on the New York scene. She has already released four CDs with a variety of ensembles and performed at the top venues around the world. The New York Times dubs her, "one of those singers whom non-singing musicians call 'a musician.'" . User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
About This Event
For Cyrille Aimée, music is a way of life as much as an art form, setting her free to pursue her creative talents wherever the promptings of her diverse heritage take her. She has developed a remarkable multi-award winning, continent-spanning career as a singer, songwriter, lyricist, and educator, while always remaining true to her roots. She grew up in a multilingual household full of music where dancing was an everyday activity, sound tracked by the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of the bachata and merengue from her mother's native Dominican Republic.
The family home was in Samois-sur-Seine, the location of the Django Reinhardt Festival, one of the biggest annual gatherings of gypsy musicians in Europe. The teenage Cyrille would climb out of her bedroom window at night to mingle with the players, igniting a passion for jazz, and inspiring her with the idea of living within a global community of music, united in creativity and spontaneity, without limits or borders.
