Claudia Villela’s glorious five-octave voice is lithe and startlingly beautiful in every register. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, she writes and sings mostly in Portuguese, interpreting lyrics with keen emotional insight and supple rhythmic command. A 2021 SJZ Jazz Aid Fund Awardee, her latest album Cartas ao Vento (2023) is an impassioned embrace of Rio de Janeiro– an indirect result of the pandemic in which she records her first album in Rio since landing on the SF Bay Area scene in the 1980s.

Already performing professionally in Brazil in her teens, Claudia later attended the Manhattan School of Music, evolving into an inventive scat singer and an ingenious songwriter with an astonishing body of original material. Villela’s prolific career has seen her grace the world’s most prestigious jazz stages and release a handful of groundbreaking albums over the past quarter-century. Her composition “Zahuroo” featured on Airto Moreira and Flora Purim’s 2022 Grammy Award-nominated album If You Will, marked her first collaboration with the couple and her second collaboration with Moreira. Villela continues to be one of the most inventive and sonically delightful Brazilian jazz vocalists globally, persistently pushing the boundaries of musical creativity.

“All discussions about Villela’s singing and songwriting necessarily start with a nod to the dizzying scope and depth of her improvisatory skill.” -Downbeat Magazine