Diana Krall

Student

Diana Krall was born into a musical family in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. She began learning the piano at age four. In high school, she started playing in a small jazz group. At the age of fifteen, she started playing regularly in several Nanaimo restaurants. At age seventeen she won a scholarship from the Vancouver International Jazz Festival to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and completed three terms.

In Nanaimo her playing attracted the attention of famed bass player Ray Brown (ex-husband of the late Ella Fitzgerald, long-time member of the Oscar Peterson Trio and Grammy-winning composer) and drummer Jeff Hamilton. After hearing her play, Brown and Hamilton persuaded Krall to move to Los Angeles, and study with pianist Jimmy Rowles, with whom she began to sing. This also brought her into contact with influential teachers and producers.

In 1990, Krall relocated to New York. Since then she has released a dozen albums and 2 DVDs. She has won Grammy’s and the order of British Columbia. She has earned a place in Jazz history and we are proud to be able to name Diana Krall as a former student of CYMC.

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