Zurich Jazz Orchestra featuring Yumi Ito (voc)

Yumi Ito, a Swiss singer with Polish-Japanese roots, moves effortlessly between genres and her roles as singer, pianist, composer and improviser. She has performed with the ZJO twice before, and this experience will benefit the third collaboration. Ed Partyka says: “I’m really looking forward to arranging some of Yumi’s brand new compositions. I now have a better feel for the timbres and textures of Yumi’s voice and how it fits into the context of the jazz orchestra.” The audience can expect an evening full of unusual sounds, refreshing and inspiring moments – and surprises: As Yumi Ito’s music is conceived and composed for smaller ensembles, Ed Partyka’s big band arrangements really open up new worlds of sound.

Yumi Ito was born in Basel in 1990 and grew up in Uster in a family of musicians: Her father is the concert pianist Suguru Ito, her mother the mezzo-soprano Margo Cadias. Thanks to her musical environment, she came into contact with music at an early age, began her classical training at the age of three and gave her first public performance as a pianist at the age of eight. She received classical singing lessons from her mother as a teenager and later decided to study jazz singing at the Zurich University of the Arts and the Basel University of Music. The Montreux Jazz Festival award-winning jazz musician has since released four albums, performed internationally and established herself as one of the most talented singers and composers of her generation.