Press Kit

September 24, 2012

Halie Loren – EPK

Photo by Bob Williams. Click on photo for hi-res version

About Halie:

Halie Loren is an international, award-winning jazz singer/songwriter. Raised in Alaska, this Oregon-based artist brings a fresh and original perspective to time-honored musical paths, channeling her innate understanding of connectedness across musical boundaries to forge bonds with diverse audiences in North America, Asia, and Europe. A lover of global cultures and music, her repertoire is a multi-lingual one, including songs in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese and Korean as well as her native English. She’s released eight albums to-date, garnering several national and international awards as well as significant critical and chart success along the way, with her albums consistently charting at #1 in Billboard/Japan Jazz Charts, iTunes (Canada and Japan) and Amazon Music

Her debut jazz CD, 2008’s “They Oughta Write a Song,” won Best Vocal Jazz Album of the year in the JPF awards (then the world’s largest independent music awards). She was signed in 2010 by JVC/Kenwood Entertainment (Japan/Asia) and in 2011 by Justin Time Records. Halie has since released nine additional albums including two Japan-only releases, and gone on to win many awards as both a singer and a songwriter. Loren’s original song “Thirsty” won the Independent Music Awards’ best jazz song of the year in 2011. Her 2012 release, “Heart First,” was honored by Japan’s Jazz Critique Magazine as the best vocal jazz album of year, and reached No. 1 on the iTunes Canada jazz albums chart. In 2013, “Simply Love” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard Jazz / Japan and entered iTunes Canada as #1 jazz album. Her 2014 best-of compilation release “The Best Collection”, 2015’s “Butterfly Blue”, and 2016’s “Live at Cotton Club” also hit #1 on Billboard Japan’s jazz chart.

Along with recording success, Loren’s live performances have expanded to include performances with the Jazz Orchestra of Sicily, the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra in Oregon, the Monroe Symphony in Louisiana and the prestigious International Britt Fest Orchestra. For the past seven years she has traveled east to west in the U.S. and other parts of the world, including Canada, Japan, Italy, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Haiti, and Egypt. The last few months of her tours have included sold-out tour dates in Japan, Korea (including a Korean festival performance with an audience of over 25,000), Quebec, Florida, and Georgia. Last year found her in London and New York working on a new album of her original material “From the Wild Sky” with UK producer Troy Miller, a project for which she raised over $68,000 of funding from her worldwide fans via crowdsourcing site Kickstarter. “From the Wild Sky” was released worldwide in April 2018, and since then, Loren has been touring in support of it with tour dates across North America, Asia, and Europe, with more on the horizon.

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Click here for downloadable long-form career bio:
Halie Loren long-form bio (PDF)

Press Quotes:

“One of the brightest talents of contemporary pop-jazz singing. A refined vocalist who expresses a world of rarefied poetry.” – Sicilian Jazz Orchestra, Palermo, Italy, November 2016

“Halie Loren glides in flight on her new album Butterfly Blue from newly composed musical poetry to the songbook of American music on the wings of a deepening and darkening musical sense, an extraordinary accompanying group of musicians and a voice to wring out all the passion, pain and promise of living…Ask me to walk into a club and conjure up my singer of choice and it would be Halie Loren.” – The International Review of Music (Brian Arsenault), June 2015

“Halie Loren’s Butterfly Blue strikes a perfect balance of classic and original jazz songs. The new blends with the old and the old is made new in Ms. Loren’s renditions of them… This is another first-class album from Halie Loren. While she continues to wow us with her voice and musical sensibility, her depth grows as she presents more of her own material. This is a fabulous album I’ll listen again and again. I highly recommend it.” – PPCORN (Joe Frazier), June 2015

“The award-winning, Oregon-based Loren lives every magical moment onstage as if it were her last, reaching out to audiences as they journey together through each song’s story. She’s able to transform covers as if they came directly from her own personal songbook. And her personal songbook takes its place naturally alongside some spectacularly timeless classics … It’s her voice. At once warm and inviting, fun and teasing, able to embody the essence of gypsy jazz to Brazilian samba, but always open to every spontaneous experience discovered in the moment onstage.” – AXS.com (Carol Weber), July 2014

“It is not just a single thing that makes this 29-year-old stand out from the rest of the jazz vocalists, but the whole presentation…Not only does Loren fill a room with her wondrous voice when singing in English, but she also maintains a high-spirited uniqueness when singing French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese… As one of the knowledgeable attendees, a jazz musician himself, said, ” Halie Loren is the best.” – All About Jazz Live Performance Review – Half Moon Bay, CA (Bill Leikam), July 2014

“Halie was flawless in her presentation and each song exuded a side of her personality that just made you like her more and more and at the end, you felt like you actually knew her.” – The Entertainment Bank (Michele Wilson-Morris) Live Performance Review – Brock Recital Hall at Samford University, Birmingham, AL. March 2014

“Loren mixes and matches popular songs from a variety of sources and eras, throws in a few originals for good measure, and lets her warm and seductive voice work its magic on all of them … Loren has something to say and her voice is as attractive and intoxicating as anything.” – All About Jazz (Dan Bilawsky), September 2013

“… (F)or sheer vocal beauty and old-school warmth, few among her contemporaries can match Halie Loren. There’s a subtle sultriness to Loren, more smoldering ingénue than femme fatale, that shapes the core of her appeal. She uses it to full advantage on tender, translucent readings of “For Sentimental Reasons,” “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “Moon River,” “My Funny Valentine,” and a stunning “Dream a Little Dream of Me” performed in French. Gently raising the heat, Loren is arguably the first to fully express the intense sensuality of “I Feel the Earth Move”…” – Jazz Times, October 2013

“Supremely talented and very versatile, Halie wields her voice as an instrument, making each note pitch perfect and sung with just the right tone, color, and warmth. From French to English to Spanish and back, she sings to the world, capturing hearts and fans in the process … Her range is incredible and her projection is perfect. I cannot say enough about this young lady or the musicians who accompany her” – The Entertainment Bank (Paul Anderson), November 2013

“…Pushing aside pristine vocals and impeccable phrasing, Halie Loren connects with a tune. Perhaps the one key to success as a vocalist is knowing who you are and being so comfortable in your own skin that you can take songs such as “For Sentimental Reasons” and “My Funny Valentine” and breathe new life into timeless American classics and allow them to live forever. Again, Halie Loren has this gift… The intimacy that permeates Simply Love is more of an evocative experience more so than a traditional vocal jazz release… A well planned, phenomenally executed and deceptively subtle presentation of the joy of song… Halie Loren is far more than a vocalist, she is an entertainer.” – CriticalJazz.com, August 2013

“... It is not just a single thing that makes this 29-year-old stand out from the rest of the jazz vocalists, but the whole presentation… It is stirring for an audience to hear a band from virtually the first bar to the last remain absolutely right on the mark … Loren shapes the songs in such an original way that a number from the great American jazz standards such as “Moon River” comes across with a unique freshness … Her gestures, her body movement, her overall smooth animation all conspired to support and breathe new life into a song … It is this characteristic along with her easy-flowing, unique voice, that makes this young woman stand out, to blossom in an otherwise arid landscape… Not only does Loren fill a room with her wondrous voice when singing in English, but she also maintains a high-spirited uniqueness when singing French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese … She took a song and used every breath to give the lyrics their unique life as only Loren can do. At times she could boot the lyrics out over the audience while in the next breath, she lured them into back into her warm heart space.” – All About Jazz live performance review (Bill Leikam), June 2014

“The jazz arrangement had wonderful charm, even exceeding the original… I even felt a bit dizzy. It was wonderful, and I clapped a lot — I wanted to have a second set of hands! Applause filled the theater.” – Concert Review – Live at Theater Yong, Seoul, Korea

“I am addicted to Halie Loren, I have no plans to seek treatment! …When talent such as Halie Loren crosses your desk then you pay attention. Halie Loren is far more than a vocalist, she is an entertainer.” – Bop-N-Jazz (Brent Black), August 2013

“The warmth and the freshness are there no matter the age of the song Halie’s singing. Her take on the American Songbook is just right.” – The International Review of Music (Brian Arsenault), October 2013

“Coupled with her superb taste in covers, this commitment to the feeling expressed in each song is why Halie stands apart from her contemporaries” – The Vinyl Anachronist

“Loren not only as that innate gift of connection but the prodigious vocal chops to pull off fresh originals and time tested standards in an intimate setting as comfortable as a favorite sweater … A stellar voice with great tone and marvelous command of phrasing sets Loren apart from myriad of female vocalists. Old school becoming new cool in the hands of a gifted artist is a beautiful thing … Halie Loren is simply herself. Heart First is an eclectic yet personal release that sidesteps some of the more self limiting categories induced by the recording industry in favor of a far more organic approach as a story teller.” – Critical Jazz, March 2012

“…(I)t all comes together to perfection. Depending on the song, Loren can be sweet, sly, or sultry, but she always finds the right read… pure magic.” – All About Jazz (Dan Bilawsky)

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Find additional press quotes here (downloadable PDF):
Press quotes and reviews