Cécile McLorin Salvant winner Paul Acket Award 2016

Cécile McLorin Salvant is the winner of the Paul Acket Award 2016. This prize is awarded yearly by the festival and presented to an artist deserving wider recognition for their extraordinary musicianship. She will receive her prize at the festival where she will perform on Saturday July 9.

Singer Cécile McLorin Salvant was born in Miami to a French mother and Haitian father. She started playing the piano at age 5 and discovered her singing voice just a few years later.

In 2007, she moved to France, and won the prestigious Thelonious Monk Competition in 2010. McLorin Salvant has a unique sound and her phrasing is a breathtaking. For her third album, For One To Love, she received a Grammy Award for Best Vocal Jazz Album earlier this year.

The Paul Acket award is supported by the Foundation BNP Paribas since 2011. Jean Jacques Goron, Managing Director of the Foundation: “A longstanding partner of jazz music, the BNP Paribas Foundation has been helping numerous musicians to forge their career. This is why, as a main partner of the Paul Acket Award, we wish to congratulate Cécile McLorin Salvant. A warm, richly-colored voice with impressive control, combined with an astonishing maturity and precision, all underpinned by a flawless sense of rhythm. Superlatives come naturally when describing the voice of Cécile McLorin Salvant. A musician down to her very essence with a dual American and French culture, this truly exceptional singer will most certainly continue to amaze and delight us.”