Heleen Schuttevaêr
Vocalist/pianist Heleen Schuttevaêr (Utrecht, The Netherlands) has a distinct voice, excellent diction and timing, rhythmic flexibility, and an authentic way of piano playing. After a career as music journalist and presenting a TV music program, she became a professional musician and bandleader. Working full-time, Heleen - a self-taught pianist - started a serious piano study with renowned jazz pianists from her home country, amongst whom Michiel Borstlap, Bert van den Brink, Walter Bertram and Peter Beets, and in New York with Barry Harris, Don Friedman, Lafayette Harris Jr vocalist/pianist Dena DeRose. Heleen attended several editions of the New York Summer School at the Amsterdam Conservatory with pianist Gary Dial and vocalist Fay Claassen, and was a student of pianist Rob van Bavel at the Summer Jazz Academy at the Rotterdam Conservatory.
When she learned to understand what she had always been playing and singing by ear and ‘by nature’, her jazz career took wings. In 2003, she initiated a series of monthly concerts ‘Club Jazz’ at various venues in The Netherlands, inviting leading musicians as well as new talents from the Dutch and international jazz scene to play with her. ‘Club Jazz’ is an ongoing success. Her musical motto is: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Heleen plays in Europe and New York with her trio or as a guest singer/pianist in other groups. She has a long-time connection with Paros, meeting up with fellow musicians every summer to play on the island.
In 2014 she launched a theatre program, ‘Club Jazz Special’. In this audiovisual theatre concert, Heleen’s musical roots and roads come together, from the first tunes in her childhood on the piano - ragtimes, stride piano and Erroll Garner’s Lullabye of Birdland - through the international hit single ‘Sing Sing Sing’ (a jazzy disco version of the famous 40’s dance classic by her first band The Broads in 1982), to her own compositions/lyrics of the cd ‘Club Jazz” and jazz standards in new arrangements.
Besides playing in numerous combinations, she gives private vocal and piano lessons, and vocal workshops for small groups.
www.heleenschuttevaer.nl
Vocalist/pianist Heleen Schuttevaêr (Utrecht, The Netherlands) has a distinct voice, excellent diction and timing, rhythmic flexibility, and an authentic way of piano playing. After a career as music journalist and presenting a TV music program, she became a professional musician and bandleader. Working full-time, Heleen - a self-taught pianist - started a serious piano study with renowned jazz pianists from her home country, amongst whom Michiel Borstlap, Bert van den Brink, Walter Bertram and Peter Beets, and in New York with Barry Harris, Don Friedman, Lafayette Harris Jr vocalist/pianist Dena DeRose. Heleen attended several editions of the New York Summer School at the Amsterdam Conservatory with pianist Gary Dial and vocalist Fay Claassen, and was a student of pianist Rob van Bavel at the Summer Jazz Academy at the Rotterdam Conservatory.
When she learned to understand what she had always been playing and singing by ear and ‘by nature’, her jazz career took wings. In 2003, she initiated a series of monthly concerts ‘Club Jazz’ at various venues in The Netherlands, inviting leading musicians as well as new talents from the Dutch and international jazz scene to play with her. ‘Club Jazz’ is an ongoing success. Her musical motto is: “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Heleen plays in Europe and New York with her trio or as a guest singer/pianist in other groups. She has a long-time connection with Paros, meeting up with fellow musicians every summer to play on the island.
In 2014 she launched a theatre program, ‘Club Jazz Special’. In this audiovisual theatre concert, Heleen’s musical roots and roads come together, from the first tunes in her childhood on the piano - ragtimes, stride piano and Erroll Garner’s Lullabye of Birdland - through the international hit single ‘Sing Sing Sing’ (a jazzy disco version of the famous 40’s dance classic by her first band The Broads in 1982), to her own compositions/lyrics of the cd ‘Club Jazz” and jazz standards in new arrangements.
Besides playing in numerous combinations, she gives private vocal and piano lessons, and vocal workshops for small groups.
www.heleenschuttevaer.nl