Biography of Diane Nalini

Diane Nalini was born in Montreal to a Belgian father and Goan mother (from former Portuguese India). She started singing jazz at the age of three, and has been performing for nearly 10 years. In autumn 2000, she launched her debut CD "After dusk", at a sell-out concert in Oxford. Her new album, "Tales... my Mama told me", will be released in the UK on February 1, 2002 on 33 Jazz Records. Diane was runner up at the 2001 Perrier Young Jazz Vocalist of the Year Awards.

This year, she and her group have performed for Bill Clinton, as well as Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, and the Canadian High Commissioner in London... Other highlights have included performances at the London Jazz Festival (2001), the Montreal International Jazz Festival (2001, 1994) with her own quartet, as well as Montreal’s 350th Anniversary Festival (1992). Songs from After dusk have been receiving airplay in the UK (BBC Radio 3), as well as Denmark and Brazil. The album has been heard coast-to-coast in Canada, featured on the CBC by Jurgen Gothe on 'Disc Drive', and also on 'This Morning' hosted by Shelagh Rogers. A few years ago, Diane also appeared several times on CBC Radio’s “Morningside” with Peter Gzowski.Diane recently recorded seven tracks as lead vocalist for British composer/arranger Dick Walters, featuring some of the UK's top jazz musicians with a 56-piece orchestra.

She moved to England in 1995, when she won a Rhodes scholarship to the University of Oxford, to obtain a doctorate in applied physics. She continues to perform in both the UK and Canada. She was also lead singer of the nine-piece salsa band Salsaddiction until the group disbanded. Diane also studied classical ballet for over twelve years, and 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 in Oxford earlier this year. Diane has been fortunate to work and/or record with some of the finest musicians on either side of the Atlantic, including Mike Rud, Dave Watts, Bill Coon, Andre White, Tilden Webb, Steve Amirault, Greg Clayton, Pierre Leduc, Danny Roy, Tim Nolan; Steve Brown, Steve Kaldestad, Pete Churchill, Malcolm Creese, Martin Pickett, Derek Watkins, Ian Dixon, John Horler, Chris Laurence and Christian Garrick.