Luciana Morelli (1990) is an Argentinian singer and composer based in Basel, Switzerland. Her music draws on a rich palette of influences from Argentinian music, jazz, sound poetry and free improvisation.
She studied a MA in Jazz Performance and a MA in Composition at the Jazzcampus of the Musik Akademie Basel, with Lisette Spinnler, Guillermo Klein and Michel Roth, and improvisation with Alfred Zimmerlin and Andrea Neumann.
Her musical tastes range from jazz to folk, including improvised and experimental music. She is a very curious artist who likes to explore different artistic disciplines. She has a degree in Pedagogy of Arts from the University of Buenos Aires. She worked as a teacher in art schools and wrote about contemporary Argentine theater and cinema in specialized magazines and websites. She also worked in theater as an actress and as a composer, being her last work the music for Suyay (Pilar Ruiz, Buenos Aires 2020-2022).
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She leads her own project as a singer and composer and recently released her second album as a bandleader “Lo abismal, el agua” (ears&eyes records, 2021), in which she tells the story of her journey to Switzerland, not only with lyrics, but also with her wordless vocals and arrangements, building a bridge between her Argentinian musical roots and jazz.
The album received very good reviews in magazines and blogs such as Jazz N More, SKJazz, among others, and was chosen "Album of the Week" by NQ Jazz (UK) and by the radio program "Jazz am Sunntig" (Radio RaBe, CH). It was also part of the October selection of El Club del Disco (Argentina) and has been broadcasted on Radio Swiss Jazz and on international radio programs such as Jazzkultura (Poland), WDR (Germany), NDR (Hamburg, Germany) and Radio Nacional (Argentina), among others.
In 2022-23 Luciana and her band went on tour and played at various venues in Argentina, Switzerland, France (Festival Jazz á la Citè, Paris) and Germany with the support from Kultur Basel and SIS, receiving a very good feedback from the audience and the press.
She is currently working on her next album with the provisional name "Words of the wind" (to be released in 2024), on which poems by Anne Carson, Robin Myers, Emily Brontë and Alejandra Pizarnik find their musical expression in the singer's voice and her compositions and arrangements for different instrumentations and ensembles.
Photo by Andrea Ebener
Luciana Morelli was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1990, where she studied a Bachelor in Vocal Jazz and a Professorship in Combined Arts (University of Buenos Aires). Since 2019 she lives in Basel, Switzerland, where she studied a master's degree in Jazz Performance and a second master's degree in Composition at the Jazzcampus of the Musik Akademie Basel. Her mentors were Lisette Spinnler (singing), Guillermo Klein and Michel Roth (composition), and Alfred Zimmerlin and Andrea Neumann (free improvisation).
She studied singing and improvisation with Sandra Peralta, Luna Monti, Laura Hatton, Guadalupe Raventos, Marina Rama, Elisa Viladesau, Bárbara Togander and Lisette Spinnler; and composition with Edgardo Cardozo and Guillermo Klein. She has participated in several workshops and masterclasses given by Roxana Amed, Cristine Correa, Dominic Eade, Dena DeRose, Bobby McFerrin, Gino Sitson, Judy Niemack and Norma Winstone, among others.
Since 2009 she has been giving individual and group singing lessons, and has worked as a singing teacher in art schools and music schools.
She has written about Argentine theater and cinema in magazines and specialized websites, and participated in theatrical productions, being her last work the music of Suyay (Pilar Ruiz, 2020), on stage in Argentina since 2020.
Luciana Morelli quintet (2012-2015), was her first project as vocalist and composer with which she recorded her first album, "Mandala" (PAI records, 2014) of jazz standards and own compositions. The group won the "Música en Bares Notables de Buenos Aires 2015" contest and participated in the Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival in 2015.
Later he created Jazz at the movies (2015-2020), an audiovisual show of jazz and cinema with Luciana Morelli (voice, idea, production and direction), Ernesto Amstein (piano and arrangements), Nacho Szulga (double bass) and Pedro Ahets Etcheverry (drums). Jazz at the Movies had a weekly performance since 2016 in one of the most prestigious jazz clubs in the city of Buenos Aires, Bebop Club. In 2017 he participated in "Jazzología", a famous weekly cycle with more than 30 years of trajectory at the Centro Cultural General San Martín (Buenos Aires). In 2018 he won the contest "Música en Bares Notables de la ciudad de Buenos Aires". In December 2018, he toured the province of Buenos Aires where he performed at cultural centers in the cities of Rauch, Tandil and at the Teatro Español in the city of Azul. In 2019 he participated in the "Marathon of Music Clubs" (Buenos Aires) at Bebop Club. The show has featured special guests such as Mariano Loiácono (trumpet), Martín Sánchez (vibraphone), Andrés Hayes (saxophone), Malena Pichot (voice) from Argentina, Lukas Kohler (trumpet), Philipp Hillebrand (clarinet) from Switzerland and Kate Ortega (vibraphone) from Colombia.
In 2022, she was part of Nicole Johänntgen's SOFIA 2022 (Support Of Female Improvising Artists), a biennial program that supports female musicians by offering training workshops in the music business, and a concert tour. Together with her colleague Laura Sanchez, she directed the framing program of the renowned BScene Festival in Basel, where they also presented the interactive sound installation "Listen" (Morelli/Sanchez, 2022).
Currently, she performs as Luciana Morelli group, her project as singer and composer together with Philipp Hillebrand (clarinet and bass clarinet), Mauricio Silva Orendain (piano), Snejana Prodanova (double bass and backing vocals) and Paulo Almeida (drums). His latest album "Lo abismal, el agua" (ears&eyes 2021) contains colorful compositions in which he tells the story of his trip to Switzerland, not only with lyrics but also with his wordless singing and arrangements, bridging the gap between his Argentine musical roots and jazz.
The album received very good reviews in magazines and blogs such as Jazz N More, SKJazz, New York Daily, among others. It was chosen as "Album of the Week" by NQ Jazz (UK) and played on international radio programs in Switzerland, USA, Canada, Poland, Germany and Argentina.
In 2022-23 the band toured Argentina, Switzerland, Germany and France (Festival Jazz à la cité, Paris) presenting the album and releasing new compositions, with the support of Kulturpauschale Basel Stadt and Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung.