Fiona Ross - What Is It Like Being a Female Jazz Artist, Community Builder & Journalist ?

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Named among the 100 Alternative Power Music List for 2020, multi-award winning jazz artist, editor-in-chief, journalist and founder of the award winning Women in Jazz Media organisation Fiona Ross never stops. 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, Hampstead jazz Club, 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 Best Jazz Song from the World Songwriting Awards, Outstanding achievement awarded by the Global Music Awards and International female songwriter of the year from 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. Fiona’s song ‘Mistress’ which was recorded live in a stairwell, was selected to be included in the British Library archives for prosperity.

There has rarely been a day since then for Fiona that has not centered around
music. 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 Fiona was starring in London's West End. Talent like Fiona's doesn't go unnoticed; soon she was signed to an agency and was featured in a string of television commercials and print advertisements and was recording radio jingles for everything from ketchup to Fairy dishwashing soap.

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. Fiona says “ Telling them that I had a job singing and playing Jazz as a solo artist in a club in London, I was so thrilled, but they were furious - well, I was only 14 at the time. ”

Fiona attended the prestigious Arts Educational School (the English equivalent of New York's High School for Performing Arts) where Julie Andrews, Catherine Zeta Jones and Will Young, 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 - She even sang back-up 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, where she was responsible for the training of Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora and Jess Glynne, to name a few.

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