RACHEL BLACK

Singer, guitarist, vocal coach, songwriter, linguist and Latin enthusiast. Rachel has over 20 years of experience as a singer and guitarist performing all over Europe and Latin America. She speaks 5 languages fluently (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian) having lived in Mexico, Brazil, France and spent long periods in Spain and Italy. With strong connections to Latin America, she grew up listening to Latin music, more recently delving into Italian and French song. She performs Latin American music, Jazz and Pop.
 
MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

Rachel began her performing career as vocalist and saxophonist for an eight piece Latin band and four piece Brazilian bossa band featuring on BBC radio. She then joined Latin jazz band Ya son tres during a three-year stint in Mexico in which she toured around the country playing festivals such as Feria de Aguascalientes. In the UK she sang with Salsa band Los Tropicales as well as jazz fusion band dB-infusion performing at jazz festivals all over the UK. More recently she performs as a soloist as well as in guitar and piano duos. She has also played extensively abroad in Italy, Istanbul, Colonne, Stuttgart Kultur Haus, Latin America, Spain and France. In 2002 she released a solo album of original Latin tracks titled Etiquetas Incompletas.
 
MUSICAL TRAINING

Rachel studied music from an early age starting with piano, guitar and then saxophone before training seriously as singer and guitarist. She has studied music in London colleges and Conservatories in Mexico City and in Paris, although most of her musical training has been with private tutors. Roberto Castellarin (Latin, Jazz and pop), Jairo Castro (Latin American rhythms) and George Black (classical – PA to John Williams). She also studied flamenco guitar with Francisco Antonio and wrote her University dissertation on Flamenco.Her Jazz training has been with Anita Wardell (BBC award winning jazz vocalist) and more recently Bob Stoloff.
 
VOCAL TRAINING

Having suffered vocal problems brought about by the demands of her professional singing career long before she developed her vocal technique adequately, Rachel has dedicated the past decade or more to gaining a deep and thorough understanding of the workings of the voice. Originally Classically trained , Rachel studied a myriad of mainstream techniques in her quest to try and solve her vocal problems before finding Seth Riggs who made such an immediate difference to her voice that she then trained as a teacher with Speech Level Singing from 2005 until 2013 when she joined the Institute for Vocal Advancement where she is now a Mentor teacher helping to train teachers to teach this technique across the globe from China to Brazil. Rachel has been teaching singing in London to students of all ages, levels and nationalities for the past 10 years and now teaches in Paris too.She is a regular teacher in the Italian "Io canto" Stage di canto e perfezionamento vocale, teaching all over Italy. She has also taught in Israel (conducting master classes in Tel Aviv) and on the European Vocal Camp in Poland as well as workshops in Latin America.
 
CREDITS INCLUDE

Sideline/Foyer gigs for Michel Petrucciani (Feria de Aguascalientes, Mexico) For Dhafer Youssef and Omar Sosa (Southill Park, Bracknell) Extensive work with Vito Caporale - I Baraonna, (Rome) and with Danny Berdichevsky and db-Infusion (work with Hugh McDowell - ELO, John Helliwell - Supertramp, John Etheridge, Mike Gibbs, Jan Ackerman - Focus, Christopher Lee) She has also worked with David-Jean Baptiste (clarinet), Rowland Sutherland (flute- George Benson,Incognito,Joyce,Flora Purim), Mark Waterman (sax,piano- Paul Young), Roberto Manes (violin) Juan Ramirez (flamenco guitar) and many other brilliant musicians!