Anthology

An Evening With Nikki Yanofsky

Nikki Yanofsky is a 16-year-old musical prodigy. Since her debut at the 2006 Montreal International Jazz Festival, she was the youngest singer ever signed to Verve Records, recording “Airmail Special” for the Ella Fitzgerald tribute album “We All Love Ella”. In 2008, Nikki’s release “Ella…Of Thee I Swing”, a live CD/DVD package recorded in Montreal, earned Nikki two Juno nominations.

Nikki’s career had a large spike in February of 2010 when she appeared before an estimated TV audience of 3.5 billion people singing the Canadian national anthem at the 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver. Nikki also was chosen to sing the official Olympics song, “I Believe”, the release of which went four times platinum in Canada, making Nikki the youngest artist in Canada to ever go four times platinum.

In the spring of 2010, Nikki released her first studio album, “Nikki”, on Decca Records. Produced by Jesse Harris (writer of Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”) and 15-time Grammy Award-winner Phil Ramone, “Nikki” features new arrangements of classic jazz songs, an original song written for Nikki by superstar Feist, as well as Nikki’s first original music, written in collaboration with Harris and celebrated Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith. The album has already gone gold in Canada, and debuted at #1 in the US on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.

Summer of 2010 saw the release of the DVD “Live In Montreal”, which has already gone gold in Canada and is being feautred on PBS throughout their summer pledge drive, and a steady touring schedule, with a recent highlight being a special guest appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. There, Nikki sung with Quincy Jones’ Gumbo All-Stars including the iconic pianist Herbie Hancock.