The 7th Annual Seattle Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Auditions on March 21, 2011 had a full house of 300 people at Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley in downtown Seattle, where ten contestants competed for a chance to perform in Kobe, Japan at the Kobe Jazz Vocal Queen Contest.
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| 7th Annual Seattle-Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Audition at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley |
The Kobe Jazz Vocal Queen Contest was originally created as a means of cheering up the jazz loving citizens of Kobe after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake which struck the city in January 17, 1995. This program has continued on past the originally anticipated 5 year program to its current 12th year. This year’s Kobe Jazz Vocal Queen Contest will be held on May 15 at the Kobe Asahi Hall, moving from its previous location on Shinkaichi Street.
The May contest crowns the winning vocalist as Queen to sing in an overseas concert in Kobe's sister city of Seattle. Seattle also began its Sister City Female Jazz Vocalist Audition in 2005 to send two jazz vocalists to Japan to open for the Contest in Kobe and is currently in its seventh year.
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| From Left to Right: Kelila Gottlieb, high school division winner; Jacqueline Tabor, adult division winner; Margaret Davis, high school division runner up; Leah Natalie, adult division runner up |
Monday’s auditions are divided into two categories: the high school division and the adult division. This year had some extremely tough competition and the judges had their work cut out for them. However, there can only be one winner in each category and so the winners were Ms. Kelila Gottieb for the high school division and Ms. Jacqueline Tabor for the adult division. The runners up were Ms. Margaret Davis of the high school division, and Ms. Leah Natale for the adult division.
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| 2007 Seattle Kobe Female Jazz Vocalist Audition Adult Divison winner Emi Meyer |
Additionally during the Female Jazz Vocalist Auditions intermission, PeaceWinds America collected disaster relief donations for the recent Japan Tohoku Earthquake and the audience also had the rare treat of previous winners, 2010’s Ms. Kelly Eisenhower and Ms. Ariel Pocock on stage to say remarks as well as the 2007 Seattle Kobe Sister City Jazz Vocalist Adult Division winner, Ms. Emi Meyer, perform songs in both English and Japanese. Ms. Emi Meyer also dedicated that sales of her cds from the show would be donated to the Japan disaster relief effort.
This program was sponsored by the Seattle-Kobe Sister Cities Association, Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley, Sankei Travel, Shinkaichi Music Street, and KTIO.
