Dana Hanchard is likely to show up anywhere in a myriad of musical constellations. Music has brought her to serve on several continents, appearing at concert halls, nightclubs, opera houses and jazz festivals alike. Her latest recording, of all original music, ‘Fool Tale Spinning’ released January 2009 on Fertile Ground Music/Aodoa (FGM/Aodoa).
After having established a reputation through the ‘90’s as a leading singer of baroque music, she returned to her origins, turned her focus and tuned her efforts to composing songs, as well as promoting the work of fellow composers. Dana’s debut solo album, Once Canciones de Diego Luzuriaga was released to much critical acclaim also on the Fertile Ground Music label she originally founded to promote the seminal work of this Ecuadorian composer.
In recent seasons Dana has can be heard on Japanese nationwide live television broadcasts for NHK and Skyperfect TV, Jazz at Lincoln Center in NYC with the NY festival of Song , Ravinia jazz festival in Chicago with Rufus Reid quintet plus four, Kioi hall in Tokyo with marimbist, Momoko Kamiya and as a soloist at the 2008 opening of the Article 9 conference to Abolish War held in Chiba Japan. Dana spends her time between NYC and Kawasaki where she helped to design a vocal course at the Senzoku Gakuen Jazz College.
With her band, the ‘Dana Hanchard Group’, she performs her music regularly at well-known venues in Japan such as the Cotton Club in Tokyo and Motion Blue and Dolphy in Yokohama. With previous bands she has performed her music in Jerusalem and Honolulu, at Joe’s Pub in New York City and at various venues around the U.S. She can be heard several days a week on the morning program RadiyogaTV for BS Fuji Television. This is the culmination of a yoga and music project developed with Ken Harakuma, director of the Tokyo International Yoga center with whom she has been doing ‘Radiyoga’ workshops for three years now.
Dana Hanchard began singing and composing songs from as far back as she can remember. She later attended Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School where she developed a great interest in the music of Bach and Monteverdi. She was soon working steadily as an opera singer and chamber musician specializing in baroque and contemporary classical music performing throughout the U.S., Europe and Mexico. Her work in this area is well documented on some notable recordings she made through the 1990s for Deutsche Grammaphon/Archiv, Monteverdi’s ‘L’Incoronazione di Poppea’ with John Eliot Gardiner and Bach Cantatas with Reinhard Geobel and Musica Antiqua Köln; on ECM, Meredith Monk’s Atlas; and for the Erato label, Nueva Espana with the Boston Camerata. She has performed leading roles at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, The Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, the Gottingen Handel Festival in Germany, Houston Grand Opera , The Brooklyn Academy of Music and others. She has appeared as a soloist with numerous ensembles among them the New World Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Mingus Big Band, and the American String quartet. She has worked with Guinean Griot Sekouba Kandia Kouyate, Ryoko Moriyama, the composer and singer of some of the most known and loved songs in Japan and Hokkaido Minyo singer, Takio Ito.
Please consult this page for schedule and release information: www.daanahanchardmusic.com
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