User:Vsanti

Venissa Teresita Santí Ros (Born May 10, 1978) is a Cuban American Jazz vocalist, songwriter and arranger who performs genre defying,bilingual jazz and Cuban influenced music. She has been praised for her vocal agility, interpretation and creative arrangements that deconstruct and steep in tradition. She was born to Cuban parents Enrico Mario Santí (professor of Latin American Literature), and Olga Ros Marti (Math teacher). Her older brother Alexis Santí is a writer of poetry, fiction and editor of an online journal called "Our Stories." Grandfathers Jacobo Ros Capablanca was a composer in Havana (Nephew of Jose Raul Capablanca the world chess champion) and Mario Santí was a renowned sculptor who designed the Jose Martí tomb in Santiago de Cuba among other monuments and works.

Biography
Santí grew up in Ithaca NY and was drawn to music and singing from a very early age. She participated in children's music theatre at the Hangar Theatre and the Kitchen Theatre. She leaned away from acting and more towards music in high school when she joined a few original rock bands. She began to compose songs and play guitar and developed a small body of work. She was turned on to jazz early on and desired to become a player. She continued her studies in Philadelphia at the University of the Arts as a jazz vocal performance major. She fell in love with the American song book and excelled at vocal improvisation. She studied with JD Walter and Reggie Pindell. In order to seek out a unique repertoire she reacquainted herself with the music of Cuba and of her grandfather Jacobo. She began teaching voice in the barrio of N. Phildelphia at a community school called AMLA (asociación de músicos Latino Americanos) and began to meet the musicians she would collaborate with and learn from for the next 10 years. Elizabeth Sayre- master batalera, Orlando Fiol - Omo Aña, pianist and conguero, Elio Villafranca- Cuban Jazz pianist, and composer. It was Villafranca's influence that led Santí to travel to Cuba for the first time to unite with family and study Afro-Cuban singing with master singers. She studied with Gregorio "Goyo" Hernandez singer -rumbero and Ochasinger -Yoruba religious music, and his son Lazaro Hernandez among other singers, dancers and percussionists of Clave y Guaguancó, Yoruba Andavo, Iroso Obba, and Afro Cuba De Matanzas. In 2004 she settled again in Philadelphia and married and gave birth to a son. It was at this time Santí began to combine repertoire and feels to create her first solo record "Bienvenida" It is a mix of Jazz and Cuban Standards with Afro-Cuban folkloric rhythms and original songs. "Bienvenida" was recorded at Radio Active Productions recording studio with Daoud Shaw; engineer, longtime drummer and engineer of Van Morrison, and the original Saturday Night Live drummer. Featuring an all Cuban and Cuban-American group featuring: The Rodriguez Brothers, Robert Rodriguez- Piano and Michael Rodriguez- Trumpet, Yunior Terry -Bass, François Zayas-drums Cuco Castellanos-Congas, and special guest Jeff Lee Johnson- guitar and bass on "Como Fue". It was Santí's arrangement of "Como Fue" as a blues, and her original song "Talkin' to You" done as a Yambú, that caught the attention of Ruben Blades Latin American Singer and icon. He featured her record on his pod cast SDRB (Show de Ruben Blades twice, the second time in conversation with Danilo Perez who agreed that Santí was audacious and unforgettable. It was legendary jazz radio programmer Bob Parlocha who discovered "Bienvenida" and introduced it to long time friend and colleague, another legend, radio promoter Dick La Palm.(responsible for discovering Peggy Lee, and Jerry Southern) LaPalm is said to have a PHD in girl singers and he embarked on a mission to expose "Bienvenida" to the jazz radio community. François Zalacain of Sunnyside records signed Santí and in April of 2009 officially released "Bienvenida".

Awards
In 2008 Santí was awarded a PEW fellowship for her record "Bienvenida" in the category of Folk and Traditional Arts.

Discography
"Bienvenida" Released April 2009 Sunnyside Records.