Saxophone Sensation Grace Kelly Joins Yamaha Artist Roster
BUENA PARK, Calif. (PRWEB) September 23, 2015 -- Yamaha announced that saxophonist Grace Kelly has joined the Yamaha Artist roster. She currently plays a YAS-82ZII model and plans to present Yamaha-sponsored clinics and workshops.
A six-time winner of the Downbeat magazine critics poll as a rising star in the alto sax category, Kelly has released nine CD’s and has played every major jazz festival. She started playing classical piano, then took up the clarinet in fourth grade. Drawn by the melodic styles of Stan Getz and Paul Desmond, she switched to alto saxophone at age 10 and soon began transcribing Miles Davis compositions.
Kelly released her first album, “Dreaming,” at the age of 12 and has recorded eight others, including collaborations with her mentor Lee Konitz and longtime Yamaha Artist Phil Woods, with whom she also toured. She has also performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Her musical output brings many styles under the jazz tent, including pop, the blues and others. Kelly graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 2011 with a degree in professional music and served as a jazz ambassador for the United States Department of State, which sent her to Madagascar and the Comoros Islands.
Collaborator Phil Woods first suggested she try Yamaha and when she got a chance to play Jeff Coffin’s YAS-82ZII model, she got hooked. While visiting Yamaha headquarters in Buena Park, California she came across a horn that “called my name,” she said.
“Finding the right horn is all about feeling and I love the ease with which it plays so smoothly,” she said. “It is easy to get comfortable on the horn, since the tone is so even throughout the whole instrument and the altissimo comes out like butter. The high register has a lot of bite that sings through the mix.”
For more information, please visit http://4wrd.it/yamahaartists.
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About Yamaha
Yamaha Corporation of America (YCA) is one of the largest subsidiaries of Yamaha Corporation, Japan and offers a full line of award-winning musical instruments, sound reinforcement and home entertainment products to the U.S. market. Products include: Yamaha acoustic, digital and hybrid pianos, portable keyboards, guitars, acoustic and electronic drums, band and orchestral instruments, marching percussion products, synthesizers, professional digital and analog audio equipment, Steinberg recording products and Nexo commercial audio products, as well as AV receivers, amplifiers, wireless multiroom audio systems, Blu-ray/CD players, earphones, headphones, home-theater-in-a-box systems, sound bars and its exclusive line of Digital Sound Projectors. YCA markets innovative, finely crafted technology and entertainment products and musical instruments targeted to the hobbyist, education, worship, professional music, installation and consumer markets.
Marc Ferris, Giles Communications, +1 (914) 798-7121, [email protected]
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