Chi-Chi Glass

Pianist and vocalist - Chi-Chi Glass - performs music that is influenced by the Afro-Peruvian and Jazz musical idioms. Chi-Chi is a former Fulbright Scholar of Afro-Peruvian music and continues to split her time between the U.S. and Perú, performing as a soloist and as the leader of the group “The Chi-Chi Glass Afro-Peruvian Jazz Ensemble”. Chi-Chi has performed with some of today’s top World-Music and Latin-Jazz artists including Susana Baca, Juan Medrano Cotito, Nova Lima, La Sarita, Danilo Perez and Oscar Stagnaro from the Paquito D’Riviera quartet.

Chi-Chi spent her young adult years in Paris training as a classical pianist at L’Ecole Normal de Musique, under the great pedagogue and concert pianist Francoise Thinat. Chi-Chi went on to complete her studies as a Jazz vocalist and pianist at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, MA. The daughter of Peruvian parents, Chi-Chi frequently traveled to Lima, where she first heard Afro-Peruvian sounds, specifically the Afro-Peruvian drum el cajón or “the box”. Since then Chi-Chi has championed the Afro-Peruvian genre: its hypnotic percussion, its vocal styles and even Zapateo (Afro-Peruvian tap dance), and has started to create a music that while rooted in this tradition is forging ahead.

“I love singing with a cajon player - there is something about the timbre of this percussive instrument and the natural aesthetic of the voice that makes it an enchanting duo”. Chi-Chi performs with several groups comprised of Afro-Peruvian and American Jazz musicians, always searching for a sound that is fresh, unique and “in-the-pocket”.