Amy Cervini

Born in Toronto, Canada, in 1977, Cervini studied classical piano as a teenager in an advanced program at Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music. While attending the Etobicoke School of the Arts, she focused on the saxophone and performed with the Toronto All-Star Big Band. Although she sang solos in choirs and was called upon for vocals as one of the few women in big bands, singing was peripheral to her studies until she auditioned to attend the New England Conservatory in Boston. She was auditioning on her principal instrument, the alto saxophone, when the instructor asked her if she sang. She ventured “Bye Bye Blackbird,” and the audition board was knocked out. “It’s ironic, but if I hadn’t have sung for them, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into NEC,” Cervini recalls. “I was a double-major in saxophone and voice there until about half-way through, when I dropped the sax. I was self-conscious, and still am, about my improvising skills on the horn, whereas singing felt natural for me, everything about it. But being a saxophone player was crucial to me as singer in that it really helped my feel. I started out as a jazz player, not in musical theater; as a teenager, I was listening to Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley and Paul Desmond, not show tunes. So, I learned what it was to be in a band, inside a band. Now I can make my own charts, really lead a group and swing in a natural way; singers sometimes have a bad reputation in those areas, but being a player was invaluable for helping me really develop that feel, as well as the confidence to front a band.”