Jazz Vocalist & Songwriter

An award-winning songwriter and jazz singer based in New York, Laura has performed with various musical ensembles throughout Europe, the US and Canada, and continues to produce a wide range of music: from Jazz and Folk, to the traditional Sicilian repertoire as well as Italian and Mediterranean songs. She also writes original compositions in English, Italian and Sicilian, and sings in Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Sicilian, Neapolitan, and Punjabi. In 2017 Laura released her debut album Double Mirror that was welcomed with high praises by the international press, including the prestigious Downbeat Magazine, and included in the Best of 2017 by both Cadence Magazine and All About Jazz.

 

Since residing New York, Laura has performed at many well known jazz clubs and cultural venues such as Birdland, Kitano Jazz Club, Zinc Bar, Bar Next Door, Cornelia Street Cafe, New York University, The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), The Westchester Italian Cultural Center and The Italian American Museum, among others. She has also performed at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in front of 3.000 people, with the SGI Youth Ensemble. She has collaborated with many accomplished international musicians such as Ameen Saleem, Jon Davis, Tommy Campbell, Freddie Bryant, Saul Rubin, Michael Occhipinti, Gianluca Renzi, Fabio Morgera and Salvatore Bonafede, to name a few. In 2013-15 she collaborated with the Pakistani cultural community in New York, getting Pakistani players involved in her projects, mixing their sounds with Jazz and Italian music while challenging herself with Sufi traditional poetry and with Punjabi music.

 

Laura is publishing two new albums in 2020: Shakin’ It Up! - a free jazz project of improvisational compositions with the Pat Battstone & Laura Campisi Quintet (out on May 1st); and Sicily Revisited, a tribute to her roots through a modern, jazz-infused rendition of Sicilian traditional tunes. The project, born in 2014, features international jazz pianist Andrea Beneventano and bassist Alberto Fidone.

 

In July 2017, Laura released her debut album Double Mirror, a double trio featuring international jazz star drummer Gregory Hutchinson and bassist Ameen Saleem, together with Italian bassist Gianluca Renzi and drummer Flavio Li Vigni, plus special guests Vincent Herring, Jonathan Scales, Zach Brock, Martin Pantyrer and Giovanni Falzone. The album was welcomed with high praises by the international press, including the prestigious Downbeat Magazine as well as featured in the Best of 2017 by both Cadence Magazine and All About Jazz.

 

National and international performance highlights of Laura Campisi include appearing as the voice of Sicilian Rhapsody in Boston, Chicago and NYC in June 2019; a number of featuring performances with pianist Pat Battstone in Boston, Cincinnati and Montreal in 2019 and 2018; performing in The Ward Cabaret at Luminato Festival in Toronto in the summer of 2018; a featured show for the 150th Anniversary of Amaro Averna (Gruppo Campari) in Palermo, Sicily in June 2018; two Canadian tours with Michael Occhipinti and The Sicilian Project in 2018 and 2016; Sing Ballads and Be Happy, an original project presented in New York in the summer of 2015, in trio with Jon Davis and Ameen Saleem, as well as in Rome with acclaimed Italian pianist Claudio Filippini; presenting her project Sicily Revisited at the Italian American Museum in New York in June 2014 and bringing it out to Italy later that Summer; the show Vedrai Vedrai, Music of Luigi Tenco and Beyond commissioned by the Kitano Jazz Club presented in April 2014; an Italian tour in January 2014 with the Back Home Trio (with special guest international saxophonist Gianni Gebbia) and in January 2013 with the Laura Campisi Roma Quartet featuring Domenico Sanna and Enrico Zanisi on piano, Luca Fattorini on bass and Enrico Morello on drums; an appearance in the documentary film by director Nello Correale La voce di Rosa; the Rosa Balistreri e Alberto Favara Award in 2011 for her active role in spreading Sicilian music and culture to the world; a 2010 winter tour in New York City; first place at the 2010 Bianca D’Aponte Award, a competition dedicated to female songwriting; first place at the 2009 Lucca Jazz Donna Award, and a performance, later that year, at the Italian Embassy in Lisbon for the Festa della Repubblica; a tour in Paris in 2008; and an appearance at the Langnau Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 2004.

 

Laura is featured on Walnut Street Station, a documentary film on the American and Italian Jazz scene in New York and New Jersey by director Gianluca Bozzo (2014). She’s also featured on the album Prospero, by Gianni Gebbia’s Magnetic Trio (2014), with the song Never Been So Well which she performed and wrote original lyrics. An instrumental version of her composition Colors on your face is also featured on Marcello Pellitteri’s album Aquarius Woman (2016).

 

Laura’s story is featured in the book Dall’altra parte della luna (On The Other Side of The Moon) by journalist Lucio Luca, a recollection of interviews of Sicilians who made their way in the United States. Her original project Lalla Into The Garden is also featured in Palermo al tempo del vinile by Daniele Sabatucci, a book on the bands that made a mark on the music landscape of her hometown Palermo. She has been a guest on many American and Italian radio and TV shows.

 

Laura is an expert of Sicilian music tradition; she is a voice teacher and a music clinician, with a Bachelor Degree in Musical Arts. She fluently speaks English, Spanish and Italian, her mother tongue, and she teaches vocals and Italian to foreigners. She’s also a tour guide in NYC and has worked as a translator for TV documentaries, as a columnist for the online magazine Bushwick Buzz, and collaborated with the online newspaper La Voce di New York.