2005 Billboard Award winning songwriter Mari Rosa wants you to make out. A maverick musician, Mari Rosa conjures a tender brew of Latin song forms with American jazz and pop, penning original lyrics in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. This July, the New York City singer/bandleader releases her debut CD, "Honeyspot" in preparation for several regional tours. A concept album, "Honeyspot" is designed to make you lose your head and grab your lovely. A 12 song CD, containing 8 original tracks, "Honeyspot" is foxy, evocative, and sensual demonstrating the energy and vitality of mixed genre music.
A native of Boston, MA, Mari Rosa is not a typical singer-songwriter. The daughter of an Italian-Argentine father, and an American mother, Mari's multi-lingual upbringing complemented her love of music, and triggered her passion for storytelling and lyrical nuance.
Mari is a graduate of the Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in America, where she won numerous writing and public speaking awards. As a teenager, Mari was granted a public service fellowship and began working at the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office. Says Mari, "Many people thought that I would become a lawyer, and working for the Attorney General was fantastic. What it inspired most in me though, was the inner strength and confidence to do what I loved, and that was always music."
After spending her teens studying bel canto voice with Charles Sorrento of Berklee College of Music, Mari pursued her undergraduate studies at the renown Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She studied composition with Glenn Alexander, jazz voice with the great operatic tenor Thomas Young of the celebrated Three Mo' Tenors, and classical voice with Wayne Sanders, the co-founder and musical director of Opera Ebony, the longest continually running Black Opera company in the world. Never taking the easy way out, Mari combined her music performance and composition studies with a second concentration in Romance languages, graduating college trilingual. During a single show it's not unusual to hear Mari maneuver seamlessly between singing in all three languages. It's just Mari being herself, and it's about as finesse as it gets.
No stranger to the rigors of the road, Mari Rosa has performed at Arturo Sandoval's Jazz Club, The Long Island Music Festival, Makor, Vassar College, Cornelia Street Cafe, CBGB's, Ryles Jazz Club, and more. She has recorded/performed/collaborated with Scott Healy(Max Weinburg Seven), Richie Morales(Spyro Gyra), Kermit Driscoll(Bill Frisell), Harvie S, Cuban legend Cachao, and Don Friedman, among others.
A true believer in blowing the dust off of so called "nostalgia music", Mari Rosa adulterates her sound, drawing as much from the bossa nova, as she does from Gershwin and hip hop, creating music that will slink past even the most sophisticated social armor. The result will make your cheeks pink in a New York minute.
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