Eva Auad

August 2011

Eva Auad (Eva Maria Awad) is a soulful singer and songwriter from The Netherlands. Eva was born in Vlaardingen, The Netherlands, on the 16th of August 1982. Eva is partly Lebanese, French and Dutch; she comes from a creative family:
Eva’s father is John Howard (Sweet Shiver, The Cave, several radio and TV appearances), her mother is Jacqueline Elizabeth (Atelier Yada). Her brother Zerah John plays in the band “Zerah John & The Great Escape” and her sister Aileigh is part of the band “Mozes”.

Eva has multiple music and singing-styles, due to all her different influences through the years and her relentless rehearsals while listening to her favorite singers and bands. Her roots are found in old and new soul music and R&B. She also has a strong Beatle sound in her voices and 'hooks'.

Eva grew up in creative surroundings and as a young girl performed songs from The Beatles and The BeeGees together with her father and brother at occasions and family parties, learning to sing in close harmony.

When Eva was 12 years old she was taking piano lessons from her mother and wrote The Sunshine in my Life, her first self-written song: a pop ballad influenced by the music of Mariah Carey. The song was originally recorded on a tape and Eva performed the song live with Herbie Spa (piano) several years later, in “de Kunstbende” (Zeeland), a local art contest. She received a standing ovation.

At this age of 15 years Eva started to compete in several talent contests. She collaborated with Igor Presnyakov (guitar) as Eva & Igor. With their mix of cover songs, self-written repertoire and a Flamenco sound that accompanied Eva's soulful voice they won the local “Zeeuwse Belofte” in the category of singing/songwriting. This led them to the “Grote Prijs van Nederland”, a national contest for new talent. Meanwhile they performed on local radio and had a steady series of gigs at a local cafe on Sundays and for local radio. They performed on the National Day of Liberty in Vlissingen on the Main Stage.

Further on, around the age of 18, Eva collaborated in studios with several artists and did lots of studio jobs recording background vocals. Local DJ Bert van Leerdam and Omroep Zeeland provided a lot of promotion for Eva at that time and still. Eva sang in lots of cover-bands, at weddings and party's. She joined the ElectroPop formation Evalation who had lots of songs, already written. Several recordings were made and they performed in Goes, NL . Eva left the band shortly after this, due to a difference in taste of music style.

This was not the only reason Eva left the band. In the meantime of all of her work and different projects she had started to write her own repertoire and she had a growing wish to perform her own music, in her own words. Eva wrote a lot of songs in a short amount of time, it came like a wave of inspiration. She wrote these songs playing her keyboard. Eva has some trouble reading music on paper, but knows all her chords and can notate them. As her personal life fluctuated and was a typical musicians life as it were, she had trouble in love and trouble with money. This has made her stronger and turned out to create inspiration for a lot of strong songs.

Eva's longtime friends and musicians Michel de Vries (engineer) and Wesley Koole (guitar/harmonica Big Chief Sugar, The Emmeroyts) joined her efforts as Michel invited Eva to the recording school SAE he was attending to make two recordings. Eva's songs 'All I can Say' and 'I Love the Way it Goes' , two rock oriented acoustic songs where recorded and provided Michel with a final exam project as Eva had her professional demo's. Eva also recorded in SAE with Igor Presnyakov, with his composition ' Why' and Eva's dramatic Flamenco song ' Discovery’. This was a defining studio experience for Eva as the atmosphere and people where all very comfortable and motivating.

In 2003 Eva joined the Rock Academy. This music study, due to hard times in her personal life, failed after one year. She had always worked, and now returned to an endless stream of different jobs, just surviving and holding on to what she dreamed of. In 2005 Eva joined the Pop Academy. Again, Eva did not succeed in school and dropped out after 4 months. She did perform in The Exit in Rotterdam, jamming with Dutch sensation BORIS and his fabulous background singers. The crowd went crazy. This made Eva very excited and anxious to get her act together and move forward to the next level in her music life.

Eva had been writing songs since, and so her repertoire had grown. She had left the rock feel that she picked up from listening to Nirvana, and took on a new style that existed of Pop, mixed with a Beatles-feel, and modern R&B singing, on a thick beat. The piano has always been an important part of her music as it is her basis. The combination of her tough drum choices with piano makes up for her own sound.

Eva, now at her early twenties, recorded some jazz s