Biography

Singer/Songwriter/Ethnomusicologist

Mari Nobre is a passionate and versatile Jazz and Latin pop singer.  In 2021 Mari became a Gold Record artist certified by RIAA for her release “Vida” with the Italian label Hammer Music Italia.  She is also a Billboard charted artist and the recipient of a Latin Grammy® certificate as a vocalist on the album Los Animales. A naturally gifted vocalist who started her singing career in Europe as a child prodigy at the age of 14. She moved as a teenager to New York City where several producers hired her as a vocalist, and where she performed and learned the musical idioms from many legends of the Latin jazz scene. Mari’s stellar collaboration with Cuban artist Ibrahim Ferrer Jr. legacy of Buena Vista Social Club (the most recognized Cuban band in history) enriches the album “Sobran las Palabras” with a unique sound created by the blend and contrast of the vocal duets. 

She has also recorded with international jazz artists such as Flora Purim, Airto Moreira, Hubert Laws, Otmaro Ruiz, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Burrell among many others.

She is currently the official singer of Joyas Prestadas,  the original band of Mexican-American diva Jenni Rivera.

She performs with her bands in the United States in the most famous music venues and she was headliners in many music festivals such as the Hollywood Brazilian Film Festival, the Levitt Pavilion, and the Central Avenue Jazz Festival to name a few. Mari is one of the few singers who can sing in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. She always shows a great vocal delivery and stage presence.

A scholar with a BA in Jazz Performance from Herb Alpert’s School of Music, she is the recipient of the 2019 Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship Award at UC Riverside and the 2016 GOFP Fellowship Award at UCLA. Her research focuses on Afro-diasporic music in Latin America, colonialism and imperialism; constructions of race and nationalism, with a particular interest in music and rituals of Brazil.