Quick Facts
Biography
Melody Diachun is a Canadian singer and songwriter and Canadian National Jazz Awards' nominee for Female Vocalist of the Year in 2009.. Recordings include "Melody Diachun EQ" and "Metaphora" by Altered Laws featuring The Babayaga String Quartet and Melody Diachun which won 'Outstanding Jazz Album' of 2008 at the Western Canadian Music Awards and was nominated for a JUNO for 'Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year' in 2008
Biography
Diachun was born in 1968 in Montréal, Québec and raised in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Singing from an early age accompanied by her father, a part-time singer and piano player, she began piano lessons at age 6 and played French horn and electric bass through junior and senior high school. At age 15 she took her first professional singing gig. At age 17 Diachun moved back to Montréal to attend McGilll University where she was the first vocalist admitted to the school's Jazz Performance Program. Diachun earned her Bachelor of Music degree "with distinction" in Jazz Voice in 1994. After university, Diachun moved to New York City to study briefly with jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan under a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts
In 1997 Diachun moved to Western Canada and began a long-term house gig at the Banff Springs Hotel where she met her future husband, guitarist and bassist Doug Stephenson. From 2000 to 2012 Diachun worked as a freelance vocalist in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2012 Diachun began teaching at the Contemporary Music & Technology Program at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia
Discography
- Melody Diachun/Bob Murphy/Doug Stephenson, "Lullaby of the Leaves", 2002
- Melody Diachun, "dreams & places", 2006
- Kris feat. Melody Diachun, Johanna Sillanpa, and Roger Audio, "Truth be told", 2006
- Altered Laws featuring the Babayaga String Quartet and Melody Diachun, "Metaphora", 2007
- Melody Diachun, "EQ", 2008, Cellar Live