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Stella Bass studied singing and piano with the RIAM and is currently studying for a Masters Degree in Music. Studying is one thing, but music is best honed through performance. Many years of singing in musicals, bands and cabarets helped her finely-tune her craft; running parallel to this was a successful career in marketing and public relations. Combining study and on-the-job gigging has generated a versatile repertoire crossing over jazz, classical and musical theatre; having long since abandoned the corporate world for music, Stella is still most at home singing her beloved jazz standards, inspired by her big influences, Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Streisand.

In 2014, Stella released her first album “Too Darn Hot" - featuring songs from Cole Porter (the title track) and Jerome Kern as well as newly-arranged songs by Amy Winehouse and Robert Palmer – to critical acclaim; indeed, upon hearing Stella's album cover of her daughter's song Back to Black, Amy Winehouse’s mother got in touch with Stella directly to say how much she loved the version, and indeed that Stella's album was being played non-stop in her house! The album gets regular radio airplay on the national airwaves in Ireland – it was Album of the Week on RTE Lyric FM, on its release - and is now starting to make waves on jazz stations in the UK, the USA, Germany and Switzerland. The album was selected by Aer Lingus, Ireland’s national airline, for inclusion on its in-flight entertainment schedule since April 2016.

In January 2015, she performed her jazz-inspired take on the music of Broadway's Stephen Sondheim, which sold out the John Field Room in Dublin’s National Concert Hall; she returned there in September that year as part of her 2-month nationwide tour celebrating Sondheim's music; this tour was self-produced in partnership with the Irish Arts Council.

No stranger to the art of the Big Band, Stella sings with the Hot House Big Band, recorded with the Dublin City Jazz Orchestra, and is into the sixth year of her own quartet's Sunday residency in Dublin's chic Café en Seine. Amongst the jazz festivals in which she has performed are Cork, Derry, Bray and Howth. She has also made numerous TV/radio appearances on Ireland’s national stations.

In 2013, Stella added to her producing credits, returning to her early musical theatre roots to co-produce and perform in the Irish première of the hit off-Broadway show,“Shout! The Mod Musical”, which sold out its 7-week run in Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre. She also completed an Irish tour of her own one-woman show, "Smoke & Sound" – again self-produced - a tribute to the music and cabaret of inter-war Berlin, featuring the music of Kurt Weill, Berthold Brecht and Marlene Dietrich; she returned to the NCH in August 2016 for yet another sellout concert. She has toured in Germany, and performed in London’s Pizza Express in April 2017. Throughout 2017, Stella is touring her show which celebrates the centenary of the birth of Ella Fitzgerald.

As well as theatre concerts and shows, Stella has been invited to perform at prestigious private events including the RBS Six Nations, the Ryder Cup @ the K Club and the Heineken Cup, and regularly performs for high-end corporate clients. She is the preferred supplier of jazz music for two of Ireland's top luxury 5* hotels; The Merrion Hotel and Powerscourt Hotel, Enniskerry.

More About this Artist

A versatile singer who combines maturity with innocence, sophistication with sincerity
Sunday Independent on Stella Bass

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