Singing with Kaya B.

Hi! I’m Kaya. I am a professional singer and entertainer, specializing in Jazz Music and Education. For five years I have played in a band singing in multiple languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, spanning genres such as Jazz, Gospel, Soul, Blues, Folk, R&B, Rock, Bossa Nova and Samba. I have a bachelor’s degree in Political Theory with a specialization in Latin languages and vocal performance. I play classical piano and classical guitar, in addition to vocal performance I have studied bossa nova rhythm guitar. I currently am teaching a residency to young students in Thailand called: "Voice and Rhythm" I am a native New Yorker who grew up around people who spoke many languages from all over the globe. I am not a native speaker in Spanish or Portuguese, and so many of my peers would ask me: how is it you learned to speak these languages so quickly and so fluently? The trick to learning a new language begins with confidence. Just like learning a new instrument, you don’t want to allow the mechanism of your tool to trip you up when you want to communicate. Through techniques of active listening, immersion, and cultural integration, I have been successful at teaching students how to blossom within a new language, culture, and music. Paulo Freire, Brazilian author of a critically acclaimed book on pedagogy once said: “The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.” When I teach, I like my students to be able to experience their own creativity within a new context, learning more about themselves through new eyes and perspective.