Stacey Kent

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Please improve this article if you can. (March 2007)

Stacey Kent

Background information
Birth name	Stacey Kent
Born	March 27, 1968 (1968-03-27) (age 40)
Origin	South Orange, New Jersey
Genre(s)	Jazz
Occupation(s)	Singer
Instrument(s)	Vocals
Years active	1996 - present
Label(s)	Blue Note /EMI
Website	Official site

Stacey Kent (born March 27, 1968 in South Orange, New Jersey) is an American jazz singer.

1 Background
2 Discography
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Background

Kent attended Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey.^[1] She graduated with a Degree in Comparative Literature from Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and moved to England after her graduation. While studying at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she met the tenor saxophonist, Jim Tomlinson, whom she married on August 9, 1991.

Her first CD, Close Your Eyes, was released in 1997. She has released five CDs since then, as of 2006, and has also featured on Tomlinson's albums, most recently The Lyric (2005), which won "Album of the Year" at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards.

Kent's music has been championed by critic and jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, and she won the 2001 British Jazz Award and the 2002 BBC Jazz Award for Best Vocalist. She also presents jazz programmes on BBC Radio 2 and 3.

At the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards, Jim Tomlinson announced that Kent had signed with Blue Note records label.

Kent's album, The Boy Next Door achieved Gold album status in France in September, 2006.

Breakfast On The Morning Tram (2007) achieved Gold album status in France in November, 2007 and Gold album status in Germany in February, 2008.

Stacey appeared in Ian McKellen's 1995 film version of Richard III, singing a jazz version of Christopher Marlowe's poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.

Booker Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the liner notes to Kent's 2003 album, In Love Again. Ishiguro has co-written four of the songs on the fall 2007 Blue Note album "Breakfast on the Morning Tram". One of the songs written by Ishiguro, "The Ice Hotel", with music composed by Jim Tomlinson won first prize in the International Songwriting Competition in April 2008.