Ivan Lins

An acclaimed Brazilian songwriter and performer, Ivan Lins has won a string of Latin Grammy Awards and had his work recorded by stars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Bublé, Sting and Barbra Streisand. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he only started learning piano by ear when was 18-years-old, but was playing small shows two years later while studying chemical engineering at university. It was from the mid-1960s that Brazil came under an authoritarian military dictatorship and art and free speech became censored, but Lins was inspired by the bossa nova, samba rhythms and soul music that he had discovered living in Boston as a child, and he made his name in 1970 when Elis Regina turned his song 'Magdalena' into a big national hit. He got his first break in America in the 1980s when George Benson covered his tracks 'Dinorah, Dinorah' and 'Velas', and thanks to the support of legendary producer Quincy Jones, acts such as Manhattan Transfer, Brenda Russell and Herbie Mann also began recording his songs. He sang in English for the first time on 1988 album 'Love Dance' and his mix of Latin-jazz melodies and romantic pop swagger also attracted the attention of Miles Davis who was planning to record some of Lin's songs shortly before he died. Instead his producer Jason Miles took on the project and recruited a host of artists including Chaka Khan, Vanessa Williams and Sting to collaborate with Lins on the album 'A Love Affair' in 2000. He went on to become the first Brazilian artist to win the Latin Grammy Award for Album of the Year for 2005's 'Cantando Historias' and duetted with Michael Bublé on his album 'Call Me Irresponsible' in 2007.

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