Lisa Marie Simmons

Lisa is a multi-disciplinary storyteller. She is a singer/songwriter (Ropeadope Records), essayist (Huffington Post, Family Stories Project, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jazzfuel, AfroElle), and published poet currently based in Italy. The American debut of NoteSpeak was at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival in Boulder Co. in September 2017. She was invited to be a speaker and performer at the 70th Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado, in April 2018. In November 2019, she presented NoteSpeak (Amore e Tragedie in Musica) in Italy, Austria, and Prague. In January 2020, she presented NoteSpeak in India on the Jaipur Music Stage. Ropeadope Records released her poetic/musical album NoteSpeak (Amori e Tragedie in Musica) in March 2020, which received a four-star review from the iconic Downbeat magazine. In October 2021, she flew to Florida to search for her birth father - Angela Tucker and her Emmy Award-winning husband Bryan Tucker, shot a documentary about the search Lisa & Isell: A story about adoption and the Ghost Kingdom which premiered on June 22, 2022. Angela and Lisa co-wrote an essay advocating for the rights of Black fathers for the Harvard Law Bill of Health digital symposium, in May 2022. Her jazz standards album Lisa Meets Gianni with the legendary Gianni Cazzola was released on June 10, 2022, on Ropeadope Records. She has been invited to participate in the Biennale in Venice in October 2022 for artist Simone Leigh’s Loophole of Retreat and her new album NoteSpeak (Dodici) will be released by Ropeadope Records in February 2023.

Awards

We have been honored with several awards for our songs not limited to but including in 2011 The “Premio Speciale” from the town of Sirmione in the north of Italy for Art, Music and Entertainment , in 2013 Empower Music and Arts for a positive music award from Florida U.S.A. and the lead song from The Italian Project (album co- written with Bob Story and Lisa Bell ) , “Bring the Love”, was one of the winners of the first Colorado Music Business Organization's Songwriting Contest in the Americana category with a second song from the album “Walk with Me” gaining an Honorable Mention in the same category in 2013. In 2018 we were nominated for an Independent Music Award.