ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Winner of the Montreux Jazz Talent Awards 2019, and Swiss Live Talents Award 2022 nominee, Afra Kane, is a classical pianist gone singer-songwriter, composer, and producer, boasting a variety of musical and cultural backgrounds. Born in Italy, to nigerian parents, and currently living in Switzerland, she blends beautifully different influences and musical worlds. Composition has always been the artist’s outlet to dissecting emotions & reflections converting them into art. Her sensitivity is enormously reflected in her music, which unearths taboos and topics not often talked about: depression, hypersensitivity, impostor syndrome and self-forgiveness. Her album 'Hypersensitive', rated four stars by “Kulturtipp”, released in March 2022, translated into a tour in several countries around the world, such as China, Bolivia, Peru, Spain, the UK, Germany, and the United States.
Her singles "Building" and “Start Again”(2021) were very well received by radios in Switzerland and across Europe on BBC Introducing and Jazz Fm. Moreover her single “Mouth Shut”, was selected as BBC introducing record of the week. Afra Kane was invited to play as a guest artist at Jack Savoretti’s Italian tour, contacted by the singer himself on Instagram. She also shared the stage with John McLaughin, Anne Pacéo and Snarky Puppy, having taken part in the Montreux Jazz Academy. In 2021, she was an “Artist in residence” for two months, at the prestigious Carlyle Café in Hong Kong, whose legacy has seen Eartha Kitt, Woody Allen and Bobby Short among some of the artists invited to the Café hailing from New York. Afra Kane has just released two singles: Invisible Cross and Empty Promises, from upcoming album ‘Could We Be Whole’, coming out in March 2024.
'Afra Kane embodies as much African-American jazz as European classical music, Western pop entertainment and passionate soul fever.
Thus equipped, the Italian-Nigerian singer-songwriter does not have to fear comparisons with the great vocal divas.
Afra Kane is also an excellent pianist, with a remarkable sense of form, improvisational dramaturgy and passionate power play.
Her culture of touch is tremendous, her individuality subtle. [....]
Afra Kane impresses with her free and deliberately imperfect interpretation of her own compositions. Her warm and touching voice, transmits both sensitivity and determination, her changes of rhythm as well as her sense of dynamics and nuances can be understood as part of her vocal identity.'
Article by Jörg Konrad from kultkomplott.de
PRESS REVIEWS
TINNITIST NEWS (UK) - Afra Kane contemplates life-and-death questions on her new album Could We Be Whole —
Produced by Kane with longtime collaborator Christophe Farine, Could We Be Whole immediately affirms the Switzerland-based artist as a captivating and chameleonic new songstress, her intimate and mysterious creative approach marked by virtuosic arrangement, seductive vocal power, and intangible magic.
By Darryl Sterdan
SUBBA CULTCHA (UK) - Afra Kane Is The Wind Beneath Your Wings
There is the beautiful, melodic piano accompaniment to Kane's soulful vocals, but the lyrics hint at something darker - references to talking, to needing therapy, to anxiety and the need for help getting through darker times.
This all seems absolutely spot on for our world in 2024; a world that seems to be lurching from one crisis to the next. Artists having the courage to acknowledge that life can be sour as well as sweet, and that there is nothing wrong with lifting each other up.
By Michelle Forsythe
KULTKOMPLOTT (DE) - 'Afra Kane embodies as much African-American jazz as European classical music, Western pop entertainment and passionate soul fever.
Thus equipped, the Italian-Nigerian singer-songwriter does not have to fear comparisons with the great vocal divas.
Afra Kane is also an excellent pianist, with a remarkable sense of form, improvisational dramaturgy and passionate power play.
Her culture of touch is tremendous, her individuality subtle. [....]
Afra Kane impresses with her free and deliberately imperfect interpretation of her own compositions. Her warm and touching voice, transmits both sensitivity and determination, her changes of rhythm as well as her sense of dynamics and nuances can be understood as part of her vocal identity.'
By Jörg Konrad
PRESS PHOTOS
VIDEOS
Afra Kane live | Leverkusener Jazztage 2023 | Jazzline
VIDEOS
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