Luciana Souza

Luciana Souza (born 12 July 1966) is a Brazilian jazz singer and composer who also works in bossa nova, pop, classical and chamber music. She won a Grammy Award in 2007, and has been nominated for seven others, most recently in 2024. Souza is considered to be one of jazz’s leading singers and interpreters. The New York Times called her voice “smooth-surfaced, coolly sensuous and dartingly agile.” Early life and education Souza was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. Her father Walter Santos was a singer, songwriter, and commercial musician who also contributed background vocals to bossa nova recordings by Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, and her mother Tereza Souza was a poet and lyricist. She began her recording career at age three with a radio commercial. Career Souza has performed and recorded with Herbie Hancock, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Bobby McFerrin, Maria Schneider, Danilo Pérez, Guillermo Klein, John Patitucci, and others. She has been a soloist in new works by composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Derek Bermel, Patrick Zimmerli, Rachel Grimes, Angélica Negrón, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, and Sarah Kirkland Snider, performing with the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta