Eliana Cuevas

Eliana Cuevas
A Unique Voice on Canada’s World and Jazz Music Scene

The explosion of jazz and world music in Canada in the last decade has given audiences access to a rich variety of great music from many countries and cultures. One of the things lacking has been a really stellar singer from Latin America. That position now looks like it has been filled by Venezuelan born Eliana Cuevas. Singing in Spanish, Portuguese and English, Eliana has stepped out from her years as merely a great singer to make her mark as bandleader and songwriter.

A student of music in Venezuela, Eliana came to Canada to study history at the University of Toronto. She continued her musical studies here and sang with a variety of pop, Latin-jazz, reggae, salsa, Brazilian and flamenco ensembles. In 2002 Eliana made her first recording as leader of her own ensemble, performing five of her own songs on “Cohesion”.

Eliana began to be invited to perform at top Latin and jazz venues in Toronto, including the Lula Lounge, the Rex Hotel Jazz & Blues Bar and the famous Top O' The Senator. In March of 2003 she was featured as one of the “Global Divas” in a concert of the same name, backed by Jane Bunnett and her band. That summer she went west for the first time to the Victoria Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Yukon Storytelling Festival and Comox Valley Music Festival. She returned home to perform at Harbourfront Centre and London’s first Fiesta del Sol and to receive the Latin American Achievement Award for Vocal Artist of the Year.

In 2004 she released Ventura, a collection of original songs about love, life and quirky speculations, such as “what if the day had 30 hours?” The release of the CD coincided with festival and concert dates in Nova Scotia, including the Atlantic Jazz Festival, and BC where she toured from Salt Spring Island to Williams Lake, Kaslo to Vancouver selling out shows and receiving standing ovations. She returned home to the news that she had won the Ontario Conference of Folk Festivals “From The Heart” songwriting award for Rompe Mi Alma in the World Music Category. In September there was a trip to New Brunswick to perform at the Fredericton Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival and a CD launch for Ventura at Toronto’s prestigious Glenn Gould Studio as part of the Small World Music Festival. In the summer of 2005 Eliana performed at festivals in BC from Vancouver’s North Shore Jazz to the Prince George Folk Festival, the Islands Folk Festival and the Kispiox Music Festival in the far north of the province.

In addition to tours, Eliana has maintained an active career performing around Toronto, performing regularly with her band and as a featured vocalist with other ensembles. In May of 2006 she self-presented a concert featuring herself, Canefire and Brazilian guitar genius, Celso Machado, at the Mod Club Theatre in Toronto. This concert was recorded and broadcast nationally by CBC radio. In the summer of 2006 she performed at the Toronto Street Festival, the Uptown Waterloo Jazz Festival, and Owen Sound’s Summerfolk. She made her first prairie appearance at the Ness Creek Festival in Saskatchewan and her Montreal debut at the Festival de Rhythmes du Monde. As the result of a 2005 showcase at Pacific Contact, Eliana received invitations to perform in BC and the Yukon in Oct. of 2006. She was well received at Nanaimo’s Port Theatre, the Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, a sold out Yukon Arts Centre show in Whitehorse and as part of the Capilano College Folk and Roots series in Vancouver.

The fall of 2006 also saw Eliana’s international debut. She performed at Reeperbahn Jazz Festival in Hamburg, for radio in Bremen and in Berlin. In November she gave her first performance in her native Venezuela at the Hatillo Jazz Festival outside Caracas. She received strongly positive reviews in both Germany and Venezuela and return engagements are in the works.

Eliana has been writing fine new songs that are taking shape for her next CD. These songs include a powerful number confronting homelessness and others celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. In fact, despite Eliana’s fabulous voice, it is her songwriting that makes her a unique presence on Canada’s music scene. Where so many other fine singers rely on standards or an endless series of love songs, Eliana‘s writing covers the full spectrum of human emotion and experience. The new CD will be recorded early in 2007. What was once a promise is becoming a realization as Eliana’s career continues to move forward. Slowly but surely, Eliana Cuevas is becoming an artist with a national and now international career. The combination of original words and music, a stellar band and her own superb vocal abilities make Eliana Cuevas an artist to both appreciate and watch out for more of.