Biography

 

Kim Versteynen has a heart for creativity and a brain for business. After graduating cum laude from Ghent University in art history (where she also got her cum laude teachers degree), Kim started studying jazz singing at the Conservatory of Maastricht. She spent two years there running a popular weekly jam session. Currently graduating, she's going full speed ahaid: teaching in three music academies (Voeren, Genk and Tongeren), playing a full gig schedule and recording her first album. Recently she even got a tv gig, performing the jazz standard "Lover Man" for the national tv channel Canvas in the program Cobra TV. You can also read the interview that recently appeared in Het Belang Van Limburg.

Musically her strengths lie with improvising and vocalising in a repertoire of own songs, old and new jazz, popular Brazilian music (MPB), strong popsongs and so on. She does so, surrounded by seasoned musicians like Arne Van Coillie, Flor Van Leugenhaeghe and Luc Vanden Bosch, but also as a freelance musician.

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Kim was born on the 21st of June 1984. She spent her childhood at her parents' farm in the small village of Poppel - the middle of nowhere.

At age eighteen Kim took her first steps into "the real world" as she started studying art history at the University of Ghent. In search for jazz singing classes she subscribed at the music school there. Her talent emerged.

Workshops with Dianne Reeves and Sheila Jordan definitely helped her to make up her mind: after graduating cum laude from Ghent University in art history (where she also got her cum laude teachers degree), Kim started studying jazz singing at the Conservatory of Maastricht. There she has courses from Sabine Kühlich, Claudius Valk, Ron Van Stratum, Arnout Gerritse, Frank Giebels, etc. After all, this was the logical thing to do, and an inevitable next step in a lifelong evolution:

very early it appeared that Kim had a talent for singing. Her mother says she sang before she even could speak. At the age of seven she got her first music lessons at the local music school. When she was nine Kim also joined the local children's choir, where she soon took the lead voice. After that (age twelve) she started singing in the youth choir "with the big kids". Again she took the lead voices and improvised second voices. A year later she began taking classical singing classes from Joost Van der Wulp - the beginning of seven years of classical voice training. Like many adolescents with a passion for music, she sang in a rockband for two years. At a music camp at the Lemmens Institute for Music Kim came in touch with jazz for the first time - and she fell in love immediately... There she had lessons with Arne Van Coillie and Jef Neve. Now she is a teacher herself, teaching jazz and pop singing in the music academy's of Voeren en Lanaken.

In her short career Kim already found herself on stage with Sabine Kühlich, Beverly Daley, Frank Giebels, Arne Van Coillie, Flor Van Leugenhaeghe, Luc Vanden Bosch, Andy Declerck, Jean-Paul Estiévenart, Tony Gyselinck, Peter Hermesdorf, Roderik Povel, Alano Gruarin, Henk de Laat, Math Scheffer, Arnout Gerritse, Rony Verbiest, Daniël en Timmy Daemen, Marco Cirone, etc. She has had lessons and masterclasses from Dianne Reeves, Sheila Jordan, John Abercrombe, Jef Neve etc. Her passion lies with jazz: standards, bebop, etc, but she is also open for new influences and other genres.