Michelle Amador, solo set on piano

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Rendon Hall/Fiddler Annex @ California Jazz Conservatory, 2040 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA

Accompanying herself piano, singer and songwriter Michelle Amador performs a rare solo set of original songs that are "simply bliss with heart" (PopMatters).

Hailed as a new breed of musician by the Mercury News, Michelle Amador combines “the sophisticated soul of early jazz singers like Etta James with the restraint of more contemporary vocalists like Cassandra Wilson,” (East Bay Express). Michelle studied early on with her father, pianist/composer Augusto A. Amador, with Down Beat award-winning vocal educator Roger Letson and acclaimed jazz pianist/arranger Don Haas. Her lyrics draw from experiences in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and now her home in Grass Valley to provide a sound that is all her own with forms that often change tempo, time, and key and exercise intentional and limited improvisation as she works to achieve her overall songwriting mission of making the invisible visible. Michelle was Red Poppy's first musician in residence with weekly shows that featured a who's who of Bay Area jazz greats. Her music and songwriting and continued to evolve through more than a decade living in Brooklyn. There she performed at BAM Cafe, Pete's Candy Store and competed in WNYC's Battle of the Bands. Her music has been featured on NPR, Swiss Television, and radio stations worldwide as well as through collaborative art works at the Laumeiere Sculpture Garden and the Pasadena Museum of California Art.