Rachel Gavaletz

Rachel Gavaletz is embarrassed to have grown up as a "child prodigy," but her mother (herself, a former touring and recording rock singer) recalls that, as early as age 2, she was playing two notes of a chord on the piano and completing the chord by singing the third! And her voice. Even as a child, theater and music critics couldn't help but be astounded--and say so in print, no matter what they thought of the rest of the production.

She has been performing professionally since the age of 8, establishing strong roots in musical theater (starring as "Annie" twice, and in "Les Miserables", "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "Anything Goes", and in Cole Porter's "Nymph Errant", which won her a Peak Performance Award nomination in 2002). She was a member of the award winning a cappella group, Out of the Blue and has recorded as a jazz vocalist and received numerous outstanding solo awards at the UNC Jazz Festival. Most recently she has toured nationally with the Denver-based a capella group, Groove Society, while honing her skills as a solo singer/songwriter, sometimes using the stage name of Kay Valetz. And all of this before she was old enough to drink. ahem.

With her love and knowledge of jazz and her taste for modern indie rock music, her songs are at once surprising and familiar--with lyrics like that phone call you get from a friend in the middle of the night that you know you just can't ignore. And that voice-- that powerful, gorgeous voice that simmers and burns and snakes through the notes from her piano like the voices of the jazz women she grew up hearing from the crib (from the womb!), many of them "child prodigies" at one time, too--it's her blessing...and ours.

All of her original songs are personal and true. For her, writing lyrics is communication, not only with us, but with herself, and with (and about) specific people from her life. It's as if we've found her crumpled letters never sent.