"Melanie sings with passion an heart …. listen and enjoy!!" - Steve Kuhn

"Melanie Bong`s songs are as original as her tuneful name, and I´m sure you will get as much pleasure out of her music as I do …. musical beauty flows in and out of this lovely persona … writes Mark Murphy of Melanie Bong`s debut album >Fantásia<. It is the first album of the female singer, song writer, arrangeur and leader under her own name.  

 The first idea to >Fantasia< came from the Austrian poet Josef Singer. Inspired by his poems as well as by composers as Ivan Lins, Joyce or Djavan she wrote numerous compositions. Twelve of them can be found on >Fantaasia<. Eight of them are based on Singer`s poems, the other four texts are written by Melanie.

 The music is streaked with Brazil rhythms, jazz and pop elements and the lyrical metaphors of Singer`s poems. The musicians enjoy much freedom for solo play and use it to add personal colours to the music that provides liveliness or inspires dreams. And always you hear the influence of Sheila Jordan on Melanie Bong`s singing. This album´s music is a fusion of jazz, pop and Brazil, carried by expressive ballads full of atmosphere.

 "Melanie Bong - her singing teacher was Sheila Jordan - is one of the few big vocal talents of the German jazz scene. She has a technically brilliant voice, a good look at Brazilian music and she knows how to present it on a live stage" (Jazzclub Unter- fahrt Munich).

Melanie Bong

studied under Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Andy Bey, Jay Clayton, Fritz Pauer und Adelhard Roidinger at the  College Of Music And Performing Arts. She attended workshops with Ray Brown, Horace Parlan, Art Farmer, Wynton Marsalis, Marilyn Crispell, Barry Harris and the singers R. A. Ramamani, Gretje Bijma, Maria Joao and Tanja Maria. Completion of studies with diploma and Master Of Arts. Various study visits in New York. Teacher for jazz singing and ensemble at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz from January 1997 to autumn 1999, and numerous workshops and courses at home and abroad, for example at the Innsbruck Conservatory.

Work with  Alan Praskin, David Friesen, Nikolas Simion, Bob Lanese, Paulo Cardoso, Wayne Darling, Maximilian Geller, Johannes Enders, Peter Tuscher, Achim Tang, Tizian Jost, Walter Lang.

Festivals in Innsbruck, Al Mutawaset (Israel), Laibach, Maribor, Belgrad, Braunschweig, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and München.