Hilary Kole

JAZZ VOCALIST

New York, NY

 

Long a beloved staple on the NYC jazz scene and world-renowned as a multi-faceted concert hall and symphony performer, Hilary Kole studied composition at Manhattan School of Music and started her professional singing career at the legendary Rainbow Room.

In addition to performing at famed Manhattan venues like Town Hall, Birdland, Blue Note, Iridium, 54 Below, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall (with Michael Feinstein and The New York Pops), she made her concert-hall debut at Lincoln Center as part of the “American Songbook Series.”

In June 2007, Kole appeared at Carnegie Hall in a tribute to Oscar Peterson, a performance reprised in January 2008 at the Canadian Memorial to Dr. Peterson at Roy Thompson Hall alongside Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and Nancy Wilson.

Globally, Kole has since headlined at the Umbria Jazz Festival, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Nairn Jazz Festival, and the Cotton Club and Blue Note in Japan. She followed her 2009 debut album Haunted Heart (produced by and featuring jazz-guitar great John Pizzarelli), a Gold Disc Award winner in Japan, with You Are There, an ambitious compilation featuring vocal-piano duets with legendary pianists Dave Brubeck, Michel Legrand, Benny Green, Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, Kenny Barron, etc. which won a New York Bistro Award for record of the year, and received national recognition as a USA Today Best Album of the Year.

“I am, like most artists, many things – or maybe just one thing that cannot be classified. I once thought I had to sing in a box, sing a certain way. I now realize that for me that would be the safe road, but not the truest road.”

That road includes a deep love for a wide range of influences, from Cole Porter to Maria Schneider to Celtic chants, Bohemian rhapsodies, Samuel Barber, the Rolling Stones and Fun. It’s also taken Hilary in unique thematic directions over the years as she debuted at the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel as the co-writer and star of the critically acclaimed, Off Broadway revues Our Sinatra and Singing Astaire.


VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS


VENUE & FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

Montreal Jazz Festival
Cotton Club - Japan
Umbria Jazz Festival
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Carnegie Hall
New York’s Town Hall
Minneapolis Pops
Colorado Symphony
Harrisburg Symphony
Off Broadway Production of “Our Sinatra”


PRESS

Gold Disc Award winner in Japan for “Haunted Heart”
New York Bistro Award, Record of the Year for “You Are There”
USA Today Best Album of the Year for “You Are There”

Ms. Kole’s poised, sultry ballad-singing has always been easy on the ears, but her smooth melodic lines have never been so consistently infused with literary subtext, which spells the difference between sounding pretty and having something to say.
— New York Times
A pure voice that flows as easily as burnished notes from a muted trumpet, impeccable musicianship, pellucid phrasing, the ability to swing an up-tune and infuse a ballad with simmering passion.
— David Finkle, Huffington Post
Kole’s singing reaches beyond the usual vocal interpretations of standareds. In her
gifted hands, they’re transformed into compelling new musical short stories…add to that the musicality she brought to everything she touched.
— Don Heckman, LA Times

 SAMPLE RECORDINGS