Célia Kameni

A French vocalist, performer and composer who graduated from the Lyon Conservatoire in 2015, Célia Kameni is known as one of the great and unmissable jazz singers in France. In 2018, the Amazing Keystone Big Band, with which she collaborated between 2011 and 2022, won a Jazz Award in France, called Victoire du Jazz, in the Group of the Year category. And in 2022, she was nominated in her own name, in the singing category. She meets and performs with various artists including some of the greats of the world jazz scene (Biréli Lagrène, Sandra Nkake, Liz McComb), contemporary music (Sting), and other artistic fields such as choreographer Bintou Dembele and writer Patrick Chamoiseau. She has recorded numerous albums and featurings, including « Secret Places » (2018) with pianist Alfio Origlio, or « Beaudelaire/Jazz » (2022) with Raphael Imbert and Patrick Chamoiseau. Some of these records became particularly popular, such as « We Love Ella » and « La Voix d’Ella » in collaboration with the Amazing Keystone Big Band, or « Maréchia » with the Neapolitan group Nu Genea, which has been a worldwide success since its release in June 2021. All this demonstrates her versatility and ability to embrace a wide range of musical styles, while bringing her own unique sensibility to the table. In 2020, a meeting with singer Yael Naïm encouraged her to imagine and build her first personal opus project, scheduled for 2024, in which she aims to highlight all her creative sensibilities, as well as her multiple influences, integrated over the course of these experiences. Citing Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell and Björk as her main influences as a vocalist, the artist readily draws on the field of spiritual and classical music to develop a style that skilfully blends improvisation, poetry and deep vibrations, in a desire to summon and transcend her emotions and those of the people who receive them.