Esra Dalfidan

Esra Dalfidan
At North Sea Jazz Festival, July 11, 2008, Rotterdam
Background information
Born (1975-04-20) 20 April 1975
Solingen, Germany
Genres Vocal jazz
Occupation(s) Singer
Years active 2004–present
Labels Challenge
Website fidan.nl

Esra Dalfidan is a Turkish-German jazz singer.

Career

Dalfidan was born in 1975 to Turkish parents and raised in the German industrial town of Solingen. After a brief career as a music therapist, and after 10 years of studying classical guitar, she became a professional musician. She was admitted to the Amsterdam Conservatory to study jazz singing and completed her master's degree in 2007. She lives in the Netherlands.

Her fondness for Turkish and Azeri traditional music gives her songs and compositions an oriental accent. Her compositions use irregular and changing tempos, 5/4, 7/4, and more. She sings words and scats. As her main influences and source of inspiration she mentions the Azeri singer and pianist Aziza Mustafa Zadeh and the Portuguese singer Maria João. Aziza developed a blend of jazz, modern, and Azeri traditional music called mugam jazz.

With Gandhi Bazaar at the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden (30 November 2008)

In 2008 she performed a series of concerts with the Tineke Postma Group, extending into the first half of 2009. She worked with an ensemble called Gandhi Bazaar led by Ned McGowan. This group brings together five musicians with backgrounds in jazz, classical, improvised, traditional Indian, Turkish, and Flamenco. Indian drummer B.C. Manjunath and Spanish percussionist Enric Montfort. The Gandhi Bazaar concert tour was commissioned by the Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts and some of the compositions have been created to bring to life texts by the Dutch-Iranian poet Nafiss Nia.

Her band is called Fidan, a Turkish word meaning 'twig' or 'branch', and includes Tobias Klein, bass clarinet, Franz von Chossy, piano, Sean Fasciani, double bass, Uli Genenger, drums and percussion.

Awards

  • Jugend Musiziert, 1991
  • Winner of the 7th Dutch Vocalists Concours, 2007
  • Finalist Deloitte Jazz Award 2008

Discography

  • Colors (Challenge, 2008)
  • CounterPoint (Challenge, 2010)

References

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