Graziella Schazad

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

Feel Who I Am   DE 60 October 29, 2010 (2 weeks)

Singles

Look at me   DE 84 04/17/2009 (1 week)   CH 85 04/19/2009 (4 weeks) Take On Me   DE 83 08/20/2010 (1 week)

Graziella Schazad (born July 2, 1983 in Berlin ) is a German singer-songwriter .

Life

She was born in Berlin, the daughter of a German-Polish mother and an Afghan father. She grew up in Moabit and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf . German was spoken in her parents' house because her mother came to Germany as a child and her father when she was 17. She learned English as a second language because her father's family lives mostly in the United States and Canada .

Graziella began learning the guitar at the age of three and the violin at the age of four . For her first communion at nine, she got her long-awaited piano . For a while she wanted to be a dancer and took ballet lessons for seven years.

She attended the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach high school and began to write her own songs at the age of twelve. Due to the close cooperation between her grammar school and the “Hanns Eisler” University of Music , Graziella was able to study classical violin (main subject) and piano (compulsory subject) from 1995, thereby laying a solid foundation for her musical career.

For Paradise and Jail

In 1998 she founded the folk duo For P'n'J (For Paradise and Jail) with her classmate Stefanie Sass ( now married to Sylla ). With their clear, two-part singing, accompanied by violin, guitar and piano, they attracted attention and already had numerous appearances during their school days.

In 2000, the two decided - a year and a half before their Abitur and against the resistance of their parents - to drop out of high school in the eleventh grade and devote themselves entirely to their own music. They moved to Neukölln together and after a while they were able to keep themselves afloat financially with their appearances at trade fairs, weddings and festivals, sometimes also with street music .

In 2001 the author Ulrike A. Pollay heard the duo in a pub . The idea arose to add an accompanying CD to her book Tinker Pony - Views of a Horse Instead of Poems. Graziella and Stefanie then set poems by Irish gypsies to music and, with the CD Blue Twine 2001, won the 10th Folk Prize in the “Young Talent” category, awarded by MDR and Deutschlandradio . This enabled them to have a workshop in Italy and concerts in Turin and Vercelli .

In 2002 they took over the musical direction of the former Schiller Theater Ensemble for two benefit events. In February 2003, as For P'n'J , they made it to the final round of the ARD show Germany's Talents . They also gained international experience at concerts and festivals all over Europe. Sometimes they were accompanied by Roland Fidezius (bass) and Susanne Folk (saxophone, clarinet, flute).

After the duo broke up in 2004, Graziella moved to Ingolstadt , where she met and married her husband. He encouraged her to make music again.

Solo career

At the beginning of 2007, the young couple moved to Hamburg due to the wide range of performance opportunities . Since Graziella wanted a fresh start, Berlin was out of the question for her. She worked as a flight attendant and foreign language correspondent , but gained a foothold again musically with her solo program. She immediately won various singer-songwriter slams and other competitions. They took every opportunity to perform, both away from the public in hospices and prisons, and on television: On 25 October 2007 she sang at TV total the title Nothing Compares 2 U by Prince . She shortened her name to Schazad.

In 2008 she worked with the producer Benni Dernhoff on their debut - EP Graziella Schazad, which was released in August 2008 on the Netlabel DooLoad. If she played alone, she would happily record loops of her instruments on a sampler she had brought with her and then play live to the previously recorded melodies. This made up a large part of the fascination of their live performances in 2008. Through numerous live performances - over 70 in 2008 alone - with Ines Kijoka and Jasmin Rathcke aka. NIMSAJ - her popularity rose considerably until she finally got the opportunity to audition in person at Warner Music in the Speicherstadt . She was signed immediately.

She got the producer Henrik Menzel, who had already worked with Udo Lindenberg and Sasha , and Tommy Peters (Petone) at her side. The result was the single or EP Look at Me, which was released on CD in April 2009. A video was also produced.

At the same time, Graziella was placed in the lead role of the Bild.de web soap Deer Lucy by Warner Music , which started on January 26, 2009.

On March 7, 2009 she was given the opportunity to make an unplugged appearance with Look At Me on The Dome (RTL II) in Hanover . VIVA Live! and Around the Michel ( NDR ) they portrayed, Yahoo! named Schazad Newcomer of the Month in April 2009.

At the end of July 2009 she supported Joss Stone at the Blue Balls Festival in Lucerne and began working on her debut album Feel Who I Am with co-writing sessions in London , Stockholm , Hamburg and Berlin with the authors Chris Braide ( James Morrison , Kylie Minogue ), Matty Benbrook ( Paolo Nutini ), Michel van Dyke ( Echt , Ruben Cossani ) and Martin Gallop ( Annett Louisan ). The first single from it was a cover version of the A-ha classic Take On Me . The album Feel Who I Am was released on October 15, 2010.

Graziella Schazad lives with her husband in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel and was expecting their first child together in 2012. So far, a long maternity leave is not planned.

Discography

Albums

• Blue Twine. Songs & Ballads for an Irish Horse. The Horse in the Songs of the Irish Travelers (with Stefanie Sass) CD accompanying Tinker Pony. Views of a horse. by Ulrike A. Pollay, cant edition 2003
• Feel Who I Am, Warner Music, October 2010
• Feel Who I Am (Re-Release), Warner Music, April 2011

Singles / EPs

• EP Graziella Schazad, DooLoad Media, August 2008
• EP and single Look at Me, Warner Music, April 2009
• Single Take On Me, Warner Music, August 2010
• Single Safe, Warner Music, April 2011

Awards

• 2001: 10th Folk Prize in the “Young Talent” category, awarded by MDR and Deutschlandradio for the CD “Blue Twine”
• 2011: Best Newcomer 2011 (Drums Music Award)

Fonts

• with Stefanie Sass: Blue Twine 2. Traveler Songs. Songbook. Cant edition, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-9806622-4-1 .

swell

1. ↑ Chart tracking Germany
2. ↑ Chart discography Switzerland
3. ↑ Heike Gätjen: Graziella Schazad: A woman sings herself freely, Hamburger Abendblatt September 17, 2010.
4. ↑ Misha Leuschen: A girlish whirlwind, Hinz & Kunzt No. 201 / November 2009, p. 34/35.
5. ↑ Luigi Lauer: There is a horse in the hallway, folker.de.
6. ↑ Mysongbook.de: Folk News June / July 2001 (8 Jg no. 3.).
7. ↑ Artefacto.de: artist database , February 12, 2004. ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ TV Total / Pro7 : SSDSDSSWEMUGABRTLAD - 1st decision show, October 25, 2007.
9. ↑ http://www.myspace.com/kijokaines
10. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ kuestercom.de, press release ( memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Biography at warnermusic.de ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Bild .de: "Deer Lucy"
14. ↑ NDR: Rund um den Michel, April 5, 2009 ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
15. ↑ Yahoo .de: Hitclip Look at Me, April 2, 2009.
16. ↑ warnermusic.de, press release. ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from April 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
18. ↑ Anna Paul: People of the World: Graziella Schazad: The pregnant musician sings in the factory. In: welt.de . October 25, 2011, accessed October 7, 2018 . 

Web links

• Works by Graziella Schazad in the catalog of the German National Library
• Graziella Schazad's website
• Graziella Schazad on MySpace