Melanie De Biasio, a Belgian jazz singer, was born 12 July 1978 in Charleroi (Belgium). Melanie De Biasio was born to a Belgian mother with an Italian father. She learned ballet at the age of three and began playing the Western concert flute when she was eight. She joined the Ensemble de l’Harmonie de Charleroi at the age of 12 and toured Canada for a month. She improved her voice and pronunciation during her teenage years. She was a huge fan of Nirvana and began singing in English in a band at the age of 15. After that, she decided to focus her efforts on jazz with Harmadik Ful. She learned to improvise and discovered many aspects of music with them. After three years of singing training at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels she was awarded a first prize and a distinction degree. She then toured Russia, where she gained more professional experience. Steve Houben, a Belgian jazz musician and professor of saxophone at the Conservatory, asked her to perform with him. This allowed her to participate in many festivals and other large music events throughout Belgium. De Biasio was nominated in 2006 for a Django d’Or award, in the category “Young Talent”. She released her first album A Stomach Is burning one year later for the Igloo label. The album was well received by critics and won “Best Jazz Album” at Les Octaves de la Musique. De Biasio collaborated with Avanti ASBL to create a collaborative creative process with prisoners that used voice, movement and rhythm to awaken their creative spirit. This resulted in a critically acclaimed performance at the prison. She collaborated with Charles Neville, a grammy-winning saxophonist, and performed “Paradise Isn’t Enough”, in the United States two years later. Her second album, No Deal was released on PIAS in 2013. It was described as a simple, sensual album. She became the second Belgian artist to perform on Later…with Jools Holland almost twenty years ago. She was a supporter of the Eels during their European tour. In 2015, PIAS UK released the album worldwide. De Biasio was also the headliner at the Montreux Jazz Tokyo Festival that year. Numerous reviews praised her EP Blackened Cities, which was released in May 2016. Wikipedia
