 Christiana
Christiana Uikiza (Uichita) is a singer / songwriter born in Romania whose music expresses her zest for life. She has led a rather nomadic life, moving from city to city and country to country, from the tender age of fourteen to the present, each time discovering new ways to express herself musically and find her own voice.
Christiana started singing at the age of five and joined a well-known children choir, often as a lead singer, that successfully performed at many national and international competitions in a variety of European countries. She studied the violin for eight years, starting at age 6, and the piano for two years. At 14 she moved to Timisoara to attend a secondary school, specialized in training future elementary school teachers and lived in a student residence. By the time she turned 15 she started writing her own songs. This was also the time when she started turning away from the classic rock she had been listening to and discovered Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, WhitneyHouston, Patricia Kaas and folk music.
After graduating Christiana moved to Vienna to focus on studying music and singing. She studied classical singing at the Alterlaa School of Music under Kay Williams and Isi Lang while working part-time. At the same time, she discovered jazz, blues and gospel (Ella Fitzgerald,Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn, Rachelle Ferrell, Bobby McFerrin, Kevin Mahogany) and began taking private jazz lessons.
After finishing her education, she decided to move to Zagreb,Croatia, where she was awarded a Journalism scholarship at the University as a member of the Croatian minority. There, she started herfirst band, the Christiana Uichita Band, which played soul, jazz standards and her own music. She released three songs and two video-clips and one of them reached number 1 in the Croatian charts.This was a busy time for Christiana as she made frequent appearances on Croatian television and radio stations, played the part of Dionne inthe Zagreb production of rock-opera “Hair”, successfully competed at festivals in Croatia and abroad and made it to the finals of the Croatian version of “Pop Idol” (“Story Super Nova Music Talents”). But never one to stay in one place for a long time, Christiana moved back to Vienna in 2005 abandoning her budding career in Croatia and starting from scratch once again.
Shortly after her return to Vienna, Christiana started collaborating with internationally acclaimed musicians such as Hubert Tubbs (“Tower of power” lead singer), Willi Langer (Gloria Gaynor,Supremes, Count Basic), Martin Fuss (Ray Charles, Joe Zawinul, Natalie Cole), Joe Meixner (Bösendorfer artist), Tini Kainrath (Eurovision2000, Joe Zawinul, Gloria Gaynor), Jean-Paul Bourelly (Miles Davis, Cassandra Wilson, Rod Stewart), and Harri Stojka (Van Morrison, Jimmy Cliff, Carlos Santana).
In early 2006, she wrote the music for and performed, to critical acclaim, in a play entitled “Oedipus Geschichten” in a Vienneseindependent theatre. In late 2006, she met the music producer Christoph Burgstaller who was thrilled with her acoustic performances and soonstarted to record her debut album.
Her earlier musical affinities are a travel through pop, soul, folk, blues, jazz and theymade her vocal evolution to a complex mixture of different timbres. Her voice became an instrument which she controls perfectly and with theability to sing. By the way, speaking of numbers, there is one more curiosity concerning this highly prolific and charismatic singer: she sings in 13 languages and speaks 6 of them fluently!
Christiana’s first album “This Time It’s Different” was released in April 2008 by PAO Records.
|
