Anna Calvi
| Anna Calvi | |
|---|---|
Calvi in a performance in Sala KGB, 17 September 2011
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| Background information | |
| Born |
24 September 1980 Twickenham, England, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Art rock, alternative rock,indie rock,indie pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, musician |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, violin, bass, piano, sitar, organ |
| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | Domino |
| Associated acts | David Byrne, Marianne Faithfull, Noah and the Whale, The Invisible, Brian Eno, Cheap Hotel, Cherry Brakewells, Swampus Trio, Lunatic Crash |
| Website | www |
Anna Margaret Michelle Calvi (born 24 September 1980) is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her eponymous debut album was released in the United Kingdom in 2011 and was nominated for the Mercury Prize and earned her a nomination for British Breakthrough Act at the 2012 Brit Awards. Her second album One Breath was released in 2013 through Domino Records and was also nominated for the Mercury Prize.
Anna Calvi was born Anna Margaret Michelle Calvi on 24 September 1980 in Twickenham to an English mother and Italian father, both of whom are therapists. She spent most of the first three years of her life in a hospital undergoing treatment and surgeries to correct congenital hip dysplasia. "The way I dealt with that was to create my own world. And that's what my relationship with music is – a world of my own creation that I escape into. I was always a dreamer. The early things stick with you," she later remembered. Calvi grew up being exposed to a multitude of genres of music by her music-loving Italian father; this eclectic array ranged from Captain Beefheart to The Rolling Stones to Maria Callas, combined with an early understanding of classical music, "I was so taken by the sound. Whenever I saw an instrument I would get so excited and my heart would beat really fast."
Calvi first picked up the violin at 6, and guitar at 8. "Something would take me over whenever I'd seen an electric guitar," she later recalled. By the age of 10 she was using a double cassette karaoke machine to overdub her playing. She came to be much influenced by 20th century composers Messiaen, Ravel, and Debussy, attracted "to the impressionistic element of the music", and would try to recreate this feeling on the guitar, an instrument she was compelled to learn on discovering Django Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix at the age of 13.
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