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Kristina Koller

Always innovative and pushing the limit, Kristina Koller is making her mark in the music world. As an evolving jazz-centric artist, Kristina has developed into a highly individual songwriter, arranger & vocalist. Her diverse & unconventional approach is exemplified on her first two albums ‘Perception’ and ‘Stronger’. In her debut album ‘Perception’, Koller breaks through the standard vocal jazz mold and delivers a compilation of deftly composed originals and reimagined gems, carefully selected with the thematic focus of love and relationships at the forefront of each. On ‘Stronger’ she takes a deep, risky dive and combines art rock with jazz & indie-pop in an array of original music. The thematic & powerful songs radiate mental strength, projecting empowerment through self-discovery & awareness. In 2021, Koller debuted her newest music project, ‘Cole Porter Re-Imagined’, in a 4 city Midwest tour funded by the South Arts organization. The music will be released in a forthcoming album. Koller creates music that crosses generations, while still embracing the history and mood of traditional jazz. She arranges tunes in unique ways, pushing the boundaries of vocal jazz. Kristina revamps classic material while retaining their essence, putting her own winning personality and fresh ideas into the music & lyrics that she interprets.

Growing up just outside of New York City, Kristina was exposed to a wide array of music & dance which markedly influenced her at an early age. As such, she performed in youth musical theater and eventually branched out artistically, embracing solo performance as a teen singer-songwriter and vocalist in alt-rock bands. Her artistic thirst reached into classical art songs, opera and vocal jazz. Her embrace of jazz expanded into the performance space during her high school years, joining a quartet that gigged locally in Westchester, NY. On scholarship she studied at The Hartt School’s Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz and completed her formal music education at The City College of New York. Kristina developed her musical voice in the NYC jazz scene, performing at venerable haunts such as Smalls, Smoke, Minton's, Mezzrow as well as The Apollo Theater.​

With such a diverse artistic foundation, it is no surprise that her innovation for new sounds drives Kristina’s creative flow, melding jazz, funk, rock, R&B & alternative genres into her music.

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7
Bailey's Bundles

April 2022: Get Out Of Town

Read "April 2022: Get Out Of Town" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Kristina Koller Get Out Of Town Self Produced 2022 Youthful, vibrant, and musically precocious, vocalist / composer Kristina Koller answers her two previous recordings: the gracefully insurgent Perception (Self Produced, 2018) and frankly anarchic Stronger (Self Produced, 2019) with the intensely focused Get Out Of Town, devoted to a dramatic reconsideration of the music of Cole Porter. Koller favors humid and moody arrangements that are the sonic equivalent of chiaroscuro in the visual arts. ...

6
Album Review

Kristina Koller: Get Out of Town

Read "Get Out of Town" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci


If you do Cole Porter, you are in the big league. Anita O'Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Susannah McCorkle have all been there and done that. Kristina Koller is a relative newcomer--this is her third album--and is, by choice, in illustrious company. Comparisons are invidious, but what do you do? Imitate? Emulate? Or strike out in a new direction? Koller has mostly set out to do things a little differently, as Oscar Wilde counselled. It was a wise choice to ...

10
Album Review

Kristina Koller: Perception

Read "Perception" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Kristina Koller is a 23-year-old vocalist who shows a knack for mixing things up on her debut album. Her song list contains venerable standards along with original material and songs by fairly recent rock acts like Blink-182 and Bon Iver, while her arrangements of the material encompasses everything from mainstream acoustic jazz to hip-hop and funk. As a result you get versions of “I'll Remember April" and “Blame It On My Youth" that sport elegant acoustic piano underlined ...

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"Behold the arrival of a great new talent" - C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz

"Indie-voiced Kristina Koller mixes jazz and bohemia on this clever collection of originals and standards ....Gotta see her!" - George Harris, JazzWeekly

"Perception, covers a lot of musical territory with originality and grace" - Elzy Kolb, Hot House Jazz

Photos

Concerts

Mar 29 Fri

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Get Out of Town

Self Produced
2022

buy

At The Poli Club

Self Produced
2019

buy

Perception

Self Produced
2018

buy

Save Your Love for Me

From: At The Poli Club
By Kristina Koller

You Go To My Head

From: Perception
By Kristina Koller

Videos

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