Laila Biali

Laila Biali (born 3 October 1980) is a Canadian-born Jazz singer, songwriter and piano performer. She is a Juno Award nominated performer and has won numerous other honours. She has performed with and opened for Chris Botti, Sting, Dave Brubeck, Diana Krall, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega, and others. Biali was born in Vancouver and began playing piano at the age of 4. She studied classical piano for many years and is a proud alumnus of the Royal Conservatory of Music. She then developed a keen interest in Jazz in her late teens. At age 19, she began her professional career when she moved to Toronto to attend Humber College on scholarships. By 2003, she had won the CBC Galaxie Prize (Rising Star Award) at the National Jazz Awards. In 2005, she won SOCAN Keyboardist of the Year and Composer of the Year at the National Jazz Awards. She performs regularly around the world and her most prolific performance includes taking to the stage at Carnegie Hall in NYC. She plays regularly to sold out audiences at Glenn Gould Theatre in Toronto.[3] She has also toured with Paula Cole, Chris Botti and Suzanne Vega. (She met her husband - drummer Ben Wittman - on tour with Cole.) In 2009 she performed live on NBC Today, The View and David Letterman with Sting as one of his back-up singers. She recorded the DVD for If On a Winter's Night with Sting in Tuscany in August 2009. Her first independent album was released in 2003, Introducing the Laila Biali Trio. It was followed up with the CBC Records commissioned release From Sea to Sky: Laila Biali, released: June 19, 2007 which features cover versions of popular Canadian songs including Mushaboom. Her third album Tracing Light was released independently on October 26, 2010 and is currently distributed by Select Distribution in Canada. One week later, the compilation album World Jazz for Haiti (produced by Biali's Tracing Light producer and Bass player George Koller) was released on November 1, 2010 which features her performing an original song Radiance. The album proceeds benefit victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Biali was nominated for a Juno Award for her Tracing Light album in February 2011.[8] The summer of 2011, she tours Canada in a coast-to-coast festival tour as well as the kick-off date in her new hometown of New York at The Rockwood in early June. On tour, Biali performs with longtime collaborators, drummer Larnell Lewis and stand-up bass player George Koller.