Grace Kelly (musician)
Grace Kelly (born Grace Chung; May 15, 1992)[1] is an American jazz musician, composer, and arranger. Kelly has produced and released recordings of her own, scored soundtracks, and tours with her band. She was named one of Glamour magazine's Top 10 College Women in 2011;[2] and she has been featured on CNN.com[3] and on the NPR radio shows Piano Jazz with both Marian McPartland and Jon Weber, as well as on WBGO's JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater.[4]
This article is about the jazz musician. For other uses, see Grace Kelly (disambiguation).
Grace Kelly
Grace Chung
May 15, 1992
Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Musician, composer, arranger, educator
Saxophones (alto, soprano, baritone), vocals, Venova
2004–present
PAZZ Productions
Working professionally since she was a preteen, Kelly was dubbed a prodigy in the jazz world.[3][5][6][7] In 2014, Kelly worked with the producer Stewart Levine on her EP, Working for the Dreamers, which was released in September of that year.[8]
She was featured in the December 2015 issue of Vanity Fair as a significant millennial in the jazz world.[9] Kelly was named "Rising Star – Alto Saxophone" in DownBeat's 2016 Critics Poll.[10] Her Trying to Figure It Out (2016 PAZZ) release was voted the number-two Jazz Album of the Year in the 2016 DownBeat readers' poll.[11]
Early life and education[edit]
Born Grace Chung in Wellesley, Massachusetts, to Korean parents, she moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, when she was 2 years old. She briefly played clarinet and classical piano before finding her voice on the saxophone.[12] Kelly stated, "Saxophone reminds me of the human voice. And I always felt this very compelling, this feeling, that someone was singing to me. The Girl from Ipanema was on repeat in my household when I was a little girl and thought: ‘I wanna learn this one day.’ It’s one of the instruments that’s closest to expressing the human voice.”[13][12]
Her mother remarried in 1997 to Robert Kelly, who legally adopted Grace a few years later, thus changing her name to Grace Kelly.[1] Kelly wrote her first song "On My Way Home" at age seven.[14] Kelly counts it a major breakthrough in her career when singer/songwriter Fred Taylor approached her after she sat in with vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway at Sculler's.[15] He offered to book her first headlining show at a major jazz venue.[15]
Kelly left Brookline High School at age 16 and earned her GED. After studying in the Jazz Department of New England Conservatory of Music's School of Preparatory Education, she enrolled at Berklee College of Music, where she graduated in December 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in professional music at age 19.[16] Kelly studies or has studied saxophone with Jeremy Udden, James Merenda,[17] George Garzone, Lee Konitz, Greg Osby, Jerry Bergonzi, and Allan Chase.[1]
Charity work[edit]
In partnership with Berklee College of Music, Kelly established the Fred Taylor Scholarship Fund[48] by producing, emceeing, and performing at an all-star benefit concert[49] at the Berklee Performance Center on September 12, 2017, raising enough funds to establish an endowed scholarship fund.[50]