Biography
Conny was born in Zurich, Switzerland where she was musically active from a very early age. She soon started piano lessons and was sent to Hungary when she was 11, to play on a concert tour starting in Béla Bartók’s house on a special scholarship. She also sung in the church`s choir from the age of 9 and changed to a Gospel choir in her teens. Until then, she had only been interested in classical music. She went on to study Piano, Classical Singing and Saxophone at the Conservatory in Zurich, but was bitten by the bug of black music.
So while studying, she started several musical projects like the band «Sparkling Blue» with which she recorded «Shell».
After graduating from the Musikhochschule in Zurich, she went to Granada, Spain, with the wage idea to start a Music School. But she was snapped up by the hottest Blues band on the turf «la Bluesband de Granada» after a jam session and found her true vocation: performing and singing on stage. She toured Spain as their lead singer and sax player and recorded an album: «La vida no es facil» and soon acquired fame as an exceptional vocalist and a veritable hurricane on stage.
After four years, she left the «Bluesband» and started to apply her multi-talent to several different projects: songwriter, arranger, conductor, piano player, saxophone player, background singer, lead singer, bandleader, teacher…the list goes on and on.
She had a duet with Toto Fabris, sax player and clown where the two of them wrote a musical comedy show surrounding songs of Conny´s feather about the history of Jazz, which was selected twice in a row by the Junta de Andalucía for their cultural program. They played in numerous theaters around Andalusia.
She played saxophone and sung as second vocalist in a Funk band «Funkdación», which was elected «best acid jazz band of Spain» by eacidjazzhispano.com in 2005 and recorded the CD «Fun people» where she not only acted as composer, but also did the arrangements for horns and backing vocals.
She started a Gospel quartet «4WomenGospel», where she sung soprano, played the piano and acted as conductor, artistic manager, and arranger. The group played all over Spain, like in the Palacio the Santa Ana, Almeria, the Arena de Aranjuez or the Kursaal in San Sebastian and was hired for important services in churches like the christening of famous flamenco dancer Mariquilla´s grandchild.
She did her share as a backing singer for instance with «los Angeles» or on a video for Paul Maxwel, was conductor of two Gospel choirs, gave singing lessons and taught initiation to music to young children, dabbled in fusion with a flamenco singer and staged projects for charity concerts. Nevertheless, where we like her best is as lead singer like head of the macro band «Bluesfever» with which she played on tour all over Spain, including in the band of top musicians like Lolo Ortega, Charlie Cepeda, Selu Bastos or Mingo Balaguer. She also acted as songwriter and artistic producer on their CD «Bluesfever».
«Bluesfever» went on tour in 2006/7 with a show including the legendary blues-flamenco guitarist Raimundo Amador. In 2010 they toured with Carlos Segarra also throughout Spain.
Conny has played with all the important musicians in Granada, a lot of the Crème de la Crème in Spain’s black music and jazz scene and a few international stars like Carvin Jones or even B. B. King. She has played in most of the important festivals, clubs and theaters in Spain, delighting all kinds of audiences and left them all screaming for more. In 2011 she got a plaque from Granada’s musical community naming her «best black voice under a white skin», a title that makes her immensely proud…
a few years ago Conny went back to Switzerland for family reasons. Actually, she teaches Music in her hometown, works with an acapella Gospeltrio, an Acid-Jazz Band, is colaborating with different Bands of all kind of styls and is also on tour with her solo Project: "Me, Myself and My Piano"