When I Look In Your Eyes
by Femke
PURCHASE ALBUM HERE
I have included snippets of nine of the fourteen songs on the album here for you.
"When I Look In Your Eyes" is a collection of fourteen jazz, folk, and european chansons that reflect my life journey through fragments of memory and feelings from childhood to the present.
Feelings of joy, longing, grief, beauty, humour; ultimately love and healing, are expressed through the universal language of music.
The title of the album was a song I played for my, then boyfriend, Saeed (as sung by Carol Sloane) where I asked him to gaze into my eyes, without turning away for the duration of the song. He was able to hold the challenge and a depth of recognition of our one heart and soul was realized.
Saeed and I spent nineteen years together, during which time we birthed and raised our beautiful baby girl; we also covered two continents, several cities and countries. Our time together, however was interrupted by his untimely passing just seven month's after his 50th birthday, making the words of this song a prophetic truth and reality.
This album has been a healing journey through the undulations of grief and love, an expression of my learning and experience. Music has the gift to bring us together through our hearts. I trust that this album of songs will bring you closer to the truth of your own heart and allow healing to occur.
Other songs featured on this album are:
“Hang On Little Tomato”
“One Note Samba”
“Everything Must Change”
“Here’s To Life”
“I Wanna Be Like You”
“Reaching For The Moon”
“Summer Me, Winter Me”
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Alan Bergman / Johnny Mandel / Marilyn Bergman
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Armenian / Persian Folk Song
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John Mercer / Jimmy van Heusen
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Alan Bergman / Marilyn Bergman / Michel Jean Legrand
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Forbes China F / Lauderdale Thomas M
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Leslie Bricusse
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Mose Allison
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Ramses Shaffy
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Phyllis Jean Molinary / Artie Butler
Here's To Life!
by FEMKE
Recorded at Bill Buckingham studio in Vancouver with Jennifer Scott (piano) and Rene Worst (stand up bass) in a workshop setting.
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Cy Coleman
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Michel Legrand
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Mose Allison
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Christine McVie
About
It all started when…
Femke is a vocalist who discovered her love for singing Jazz music, while she was living in New York City. Femke 'honed her chops' in a variety of New York Jazz club open mike sessions and at the "University of the Streets" in the East Village, and enjoyed playing with, and learning from many seasoned Jazz musicians.
When Femke left NYC and moved back to Toronto, she continued studying voice and jazz theory privately with Lisa Martinelli (Head of Jazz Voice at Humber College) and eventually formed her own Jazz trio. With her trio (bass, piano and vocals) she performed at weddings, private house concerts/ parties, hotels and restaurants, the Dutch consulate as well as Indigo/ Chapters bookstores throughout Toronto.
She eventually moved to Victoria, BC with her family and more jazz workshops and vocal training followed with Gergana Velinova (Head of Jazz Vocal at the Victoria Conservatory of Music) and well-loved, local Jazz and Blues Vocalist Maureen Washington. While at BC summer swing camp, she met and worked with the well-known and respected musicians and educators Jennifer Scott and Rene Worst, with whom she recorded the demo tracks on the website.
Femke likes to sing in different languages (English, French and some Farsi and German).Her choice of songs is greatly inspired by her own life experience, and the interpretation of these songs by classic Jazz singers: Shirley Horn, Nina Simone, Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and contemporaries Karrin Allyson, Stacy Kent, Nicki Parrot, Becky Kilgore, Diane Panton and Diana Krall. She is also inspired by the music of Eva Cassidy, Joni Mitchell and French legends Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf.
Femke's life journey so far has shown her that expressing herself through singing is a way to celebrate our common humanity, and our Universal longing to connect from our hearts with each other and our True Selves. Femke enjoys collaborating with other singers and musicians and has done several house concerts with Susannah Adams, Karel Roessingh, Joey Smith and Ken Seidman. She has sung at Art Gallery openings, birthday parties and anniversaries, spiritual community gatherings and is an active volunteer on the board of Ujam in Victoria.
She is excited and grateful to be able to share her music with a wider audience in Victoria and to add some joy, spark and reflection to your special event.
For comments, inquiries or bookings, please see the contact page.
SCHEDULE
New Album Release: 11.11.2020
Femke with Bill Buckingham and Rene Worst on the last day of recording at Palace Studios (Vancouver).
Produced by: Rene Worst
Recorded at: Monarch Studios and the Palace Studios in September 2018
Mixed and Mastered by: Bill Buckingham at the Palace Studios
Arrangements: Miles Black and Rene Worst
Karel Roessingh, Femke, Susannah Adams & Joey Smith
"In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art." ~ Rumi
femke
"Sympathique" LIVE by Pink Martini
