Featured Gig: Fiona Ross at Jazz Cafe Posk

Photo by Steven Tiller

Multi award winning jazz artist and our very own senior writer, Fiona Ross returns to Jazz Café Posk with her exclusive acoustic set on Saturday February 11^th. Featuring songs from all six of her albums, Fiona will also be premiering some brand-new songs from her much anticipated upcoming album.

There has rarely been a day since then for Fiona that has not centered around music and the award winning writer and film director Garth Twa explains ‘Enrolled in dance, drama and singing lessons at the age of two, piano at age six. At what moment did Fiona make a conscious choice to pursue a career in music? There wasn’t a moment. There was never a time when there was any other choice. By the age of eight years old she was starring in London’s West End. At the age of fourteen she lied about her age and talked her way into gigging on weekends in jazz clubs throughout London, from the classy nightspots of the elite to some rather seedy pubs that were no place for an ordinary teenager. There were never any contracts to sign, it was always cash in hand at the end of the night. No one even suspected that a voice that startling in its maturity and passion could belong to a singer barely into her teens.’

As vocalist, pianist, composer and producer, Fiona has become known for creating her own contemporary jazz sound incorporating fast paced Latin Jazz, vintage Jazz club, a little neo soul along with heart wrenching ballads. She came to the worlds attention as ‘the artist that gave Ed Sheeran his ‘first push’ but very quickly established herself as an artist in her own right and has received incredible reviews and awards across the globe for all of her albums.

Her live performances have seen her perform at prestigious venues including 606 Club, Pizza Express, Union Chapel, Nells Jazz and Blues, Jazz Café Posk and Toulouse Lautrec and festivals such as the EFG London Jazz Festival and her music is played on radio stations all over the world. Fiona has achieved many accolades for her work including recognition from the World Songwriting Awards, the Global Music Awards and the International Singer Songwriters Association. She has been featured in many publications including Tinnitist, Jazziz, Record World Magazine, Jazz Corner, Ink 19 and Jazz Quarterly and her song ‘Mistress’ which was recorded live in a stairwell, was selected to be included in the British Library archives for prosperity.

Fiona attended the prestigious Arts Educational School (the English equivalent of New York’s High School for Performing Arts) where Julie Andrews, Jane Seymour, Catherine Zeta Jones and Adam Cooper, to name just a few, also trained. Fiona’s career has taken her all over the musical map. She has worked as a musical director, session musician, composer, choreographer, director, dancer, actor, model – and even sang backing vocals for a rock and roll band called Rocking Willie and the Y-Fronts when she was 15.

Alongside this, educating young people has been Fiona’s passion and she was Head of British Academy of New Music, London, for nearly nine years and has been nominated twice for ‘the Positive Role Model award’ by the National Diversity Awards. She is also the founder of Women in Jazz Media.