Once upon a time, there came to be an unlikely union between a handsome Middle Eastern prince, and a beautiful Eastern European Jewish mystic. The unlikely couple bore Leila Anna Naderi known professionally as award-winning vocalist and composer Leila Neverland. Born in the City of Baltimore, MD, USA during a February blizzard, she grew up in the Florida Keys, Toronto, Texas, and travelled throughout Europe and Africa before settling in the Okanagan to raise her two children.
As a young girl, she soaked up the art of jazz through old films and founding artists like Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Thelonious Monk. At age 12, she left studies in classical piano to pursue a growing love of jazz. She took it upon herself to learn Ella’s scats note for note, attended the Beach’s Jazz Festival in Toronto every summer like clockwork, listened to the jazz on the radio every Friday night, hung out in the dirty South’s jazz clubs as a teen, and transmuted the form into her own compositions and unique vocal stylings.
Join her January 12th at the Moonlight Jazz Society’s fourth concert of the year as she steps out from behind her piano, puts down her compositional pen, and spends a night singing the music that is closest to her heart – Jazz.
See more at www.leilaneverland.com.
Moonlight Jazz Society (MJS) is a NEW non-profit focused on facilitating connection between primarily composers and arrangers, venues, and audiences to foster synergy in the local and provincial jazz community. In its first year, MJS created an 8-concert series in partnership with the Vibrant Vine winery’s new piano room made possible by the generous contribution of Simon Nuttgens out of Naramata.
Sponsors include: Wentworth Music, Coast Capri Hotel, Urban Harvest Organic Delivery, Creative Okanagan, Kelowna Community School of Music, Alex Hennig, Joe Auty Simon Nuttgens.
To show your arts’ patronage and get on the MJS mailing list, email moonlightjazzseries@gmail.com!
Follow @moonlightjazzseries on Facebook and Instagram for more.
