Angela Verbrugge

Vancouver, and now Victoria-based jazz vocalist Angela Verbrugge makes her Vancouver Island debut with her quartet for the jazz portion of the popular Church of the Advent Jazz Vespers series. Angela has performed at all the leading Lower Mainland Vespers many times, and brings her unique brand of thoughtful and swinging repertoire to our audience alongside the reflections and opportunities for personal prayer.

Angela Verbrugge is a jazz vocalist who "possesses a winsome, brightly burnished, pliable voice, ample emotional intelligence, considerable songwriting skills, and conspicuously good taste" (JazzTimes). "Her voice is both innocent and sulty and has playfulness that takes audiences on a journey," writes Neon Jazz. CBC Saturday Night Jazz played Angela's debut release shortly after it debuted at Number 1 for Jazz on iTunes Canada, and Laila Biali described: "There's so much joy in her delivery. You can just hear the smile in her voice." She was one of the youngest graduates in the history of top-rated Canadian performing arts college, George Brown School of Performing Arts (Toronto), after a youth spent studying piano and active on the arts scene of her birth city of Kingston, Ontario. She relocated to Vancouver in 1997. After having three kids and three close brushes with death, she followed her passion to vocal jazz, releasing her debut record in 2019 with piano trio backing from three veterans of the NYC Jazz scene: Ray Gallon (Lionel Hampton, Joe Williams, Chaka Khan), Cameron Brown (former Jazz Messenger) and Anthony Pinciotti (Stacey Kent, Dr Lonnie Smith). Award-winning vocal jazz history author, Wall Street Journal writer describes it as having a, "top-drawer arranging crew and cast of expert musicians", noting that " with a vocal sound that's full of depth and nuance - welcoming the light but without denying the existence of the darkness".

Photo: Bruce McPherson Photography https://www.flickr.com/people/33731142@N03/