violetgreens – music

• Singer • Composer • Arranger • Performer • Visual Artist • Musician• Singer • Composer • Arranger • Performer • Visual Artist • Musician• Singer • Composer • Arranger • Performer • Visual Artist • Musician

ABOUT

Inspired by Billie Holiday’s heartfelt, genuine and yet detached expressiveness, the lyrically provocative eloquence of sophisticated rap and absurdism, Violet Greens creates a symbiosis between jazz, contemporary pop music and hip hop, while seeking her very own original musical language.

Spiritual abyss and prosaic observations of social and emotional structures and interpersonal relationships find expression in subtle imagery, blatant irony and genre-spanning sounds. Violet Greens and her newcomer formation won’t be dictated to by an elitist jazz scene and bank on a progressive style and Zeitgeist.

BIO

Being born into a musical and artistic family, Violet was regularly exposed to a variety of music growing up, from jazz to soul, to classical music, ballet and fine arts. Her professional journey with Jazz began in 2009, when she and her father (jazz pianist and composer) formed a jazz duo and started performing regularly at local clubs.

After graduating from high school, Violet started studying Jazz Vocals in 2011 with Norbert Gottschalk. From 2014 to 2016 she narrated the tragic life story of unique jazz singer Billie Holiday, who is one of Violet's most important influences, in the play "Lady Sings The Blues".

2014 and 2015 took Violet Greens to Taiwan, where she participated as a guest musician in the "Mizsform Project" and performed at the International Taichung Jazz Festival in October 2015. She gained further international experience in 2018 at the International Riga Jazz Stage Competition in Latvia. In 2019 she performed at the Open House Festival in Vilnius. As part of the newcomer jazz series "PureJazz Sessions" funded by the Goethe-Institut, Violet performed in Bucharest in 2022.

She completed her master’s degree at the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig in 2021. Since then Violet has been treading her path as bandleader of the jazz ensemble "Violet Greens Swaggz The Swing". In addition, Violet Greens composes, arranges and produces all of her own songs.

She released two singles, MHP and Sad Song, as part of the Neustart Kultur scholarship 2021. Her first full EP is set for release in spring 2023.

Her greatest musical influences include Billie Holiday, George Benson, Dionne Warwick, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Nat King Cole. In addition she was influenced by artists such as Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osborne and the band "HIM".

Growing up between different cultures and mindsets, Violet Greens experienced constant ambiguity resulting in a penchant for theatrics and excessiveness upon which she draws her artistic strength, overcoming barriers and translating impressions and emotions into a universal language. For Violet Greens, jazz is an ever-changing and fluid genre.