Shure Microphone Jazz Singer Winners

Alita Moses, from West Hartford, CT, USA, can’t remember a time when she wasn’t surrounded by music. Now, entering her senior year as a Jazz Vocal Major at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, USA, she draws her versatility from performances at the Essentially Ellington Jazz Competition in NYC, solo work with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and writing/singing with r&b, indie, and pop bands in the Philadelphia area.

The 12th Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Singing Competition concluded, following a close finish in the Petit Théâtre at Montreux Palace, Switzerland, during the middle weekend of internationally renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. As ever, there were excellent performances by all three finalists, but in the end, after much debate steered by the 2014 leader of the competition jury Sweet Georgia Brown, 20-year-old Alita Moses from Connecticut, USA was announced as the 2014 winner of the competition’s first prize, following compelling renditions of Miles Davis’s ‘Four’, Gershwin’s ‘Someone To Watch Over Me’ and Magda Giannikou’s ‘Amour T’es Lá?’.

Laura Perrudin and Myriam Bouk Moun, both from France, won the second and third prizes respectively. This year’s contest was notable for its collaborative atmosphere: at one point during rehearsals for the semi-finals, the nine supposed competitors broke into a spontaneously improvised circle song, to the delight of everyone watching.

Established to nurture and promote talented young singers from all around the world through its close connection with the internationally renowned annual Montreux Jazz Festival, the Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition has been sponsored since its foundation by microphone manufacturer Shure. Like previous winners of the competition, all three of the 2014 finalists will take home Shure products of their choice to a total value of 2000 Euros, along with other prizes.

Watch the video of her performance here;

http://youtu.be/iK6ZQXBuS68