Biography

 

Miriam Ast is an international jazz vocalist, band leader and music conservatoire lecturer.

 

She released her debut album ‘Secret Songs’ in 2018, featuring the acclaimed British saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and played a following release tour in the UK and her home country Germany with pianist Victor Gutierrez. She won Best Vocalist Award in 2017 and was a semi-finalist of the Shure Montreux Jazz Voice competition that same year. She was a senior lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire in the north of England from 2017- 2021 and since her return to Germany, she has been teaching  jazz singing at the music conservatoire in Freiburg and at Jazz und Rockschule Freiburg.

 

Miriam grew up in Speyer, Germany in a musical family, learning the saxophone, guitar and singing in the gospel choir from an early age. She discovered her love of jazz at a jazz workshop in Germany, where she began transferring improvisational lines to her voice, which made her stand out as a vocal improviser early on. She continued to study a Bachelor's degree in both jazz singing and saxophone in Mainz, while also becoming a member of the German National Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzo) in 2012.

 

In 2014 she moved to London for her Masters at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Pete Churchill, Nia Lynn and Norma Winstone. Graduating with distinction in 2016, she became part of the London Vocal Project under direction of Pete Churchill and started collaborating with British musicians Alex Merritt, Sam Leak, Tori Freestone and Stan Sulzmann beyond others,  playing shows at the London Jazz Festival 2018 and 19. With her own band she performed at venues such as the 606 Club, Spice of Life, Vortex Jazz Club, The Lescar Sheffield, and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.

 

She has now formed a new unconventional trio with jazz pianist Daniel Prandl and crossover cellist Jörg Brinkmann. Her new concept album consists of modern jazz arrangements of folk tunes from throughout Europe. In this project, she draws from her musical and cultural experiences from her time in the UK and explores Europe’s rich heritage with her own distinct voice.

 

Miriam is now based in Stuttgart, Germany and slowly establishing herself in the local music scene.