Deborah Tanguy - jazz vocalist, performer, teacher & recording artist

DEBORAH TANGUY is one of the leading contemporary jazz and improvising music artists in France. She is an accomplished and award-winning performer of a variety of musical styles, including mainstream and contemporary jazz, funk, big band and popular music. Ms Tanguy is frequently engaged as a performer, bandleader and recording artist in her home country.

Ms Tanguy’s major awards include: Winner of the Young French Jazz Talent (2002); Best jazz singer at the Crest Jazz Vocal competition in 2001; and nominated as one of the 5 international discoveries of the jazz festival of Juan-les-pins in 2004.

In France she has collaborated with numerous renowned names in the French music industry, including composer-leader Glenn Ferris, big band leader-pianist Antoine Herve, pianist-composer Carine Bonnefey and more recently pop producer Shazz with who she recorded the album Beautiful for Universal Records.

Ms Tanguy leads her jazz ensemble the Deborah Tanguy Quintet, which recorded the album Out of the Blues in 2001. In 2005 she recorded the music of Carine Bonnefoy with the renowned Netherlands Metropole Orchestra under maestro Vince Mendoza, released in February 2007 under the title Outre-Terres/Overlands. Her second solo album is currently in production and features a French ensemble and South African great Carlo Mombelli.

Tanguy is in demand as a vocal teacher and coach in a variety of contexts, from schools to conservatories, university and private tutoring. Her focus is vocal ensemble and individual teaching.

Ms Tanguy has been a frequent visitor to Cape Town since February 2003, first as a guest of Jazz at the Nassau for a series of feted public performances, followed by several teaching stints at UCT by special invitation of the head of jazz studies, Professor Mike Campbell.

She has become a regular on the city’s music scene, often performing at renowned city venues like the Green Dolphin, Manenberg’s, Zula Bar, Winchester Mansions, The Table Bay Hotel, with many of SA’s most renowned music performers, including Mike Campbell, Darryl Andrews, Mike Rossi, Shannon Mowday, Andre Petersen, Clement Benny, Wayne Bosch, Mike Perry and Alvin Dyers. Her performance highlights in SA include performances for the Awesome Big Band at the National Jazz Festival (2005-2006) in Grahamstown; vocalist in Shannon Mowday’s Galumphing at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (2005-2006), The Joy of Jazz Festival, Jhb (2006) and the Baxter Concert Hall; and performing the music of Michel LeGrand with the Darryl Andrews Big Band especially commissioned by Jazz at the Nassau (2006). She is a founding member of SAFRA (South Africa-France Jazz Band), an all-female SA-France music collaboration, performing original work, which made its debut at the famous New Morning jazz club in Paris (Sep. 2006). The group is set to tour South Africa in 2008.

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