Lily Kiara

Lily Kiara is a poetic singer/songwriter based in Amsterdam. A sensory storyteller with a fierce staccato and sensitive guitar. A vocal quality of passion, vulnerability and power, all rolled up into one. Intimate acoustic folk poem songs with fierce outlets and staccato guitar playing. Leaves you want to take a walk in the wind, or write a poem. Has been compared to the likes of Jonatha Brooke, Rickie Lee Jones, Suzanne Vega, Ani DiFranco.On January 18th 2008 her new full solo album On This Ground released. Guests on the album are Felicity Provan (cornet) and Andy Moor (electric guitar). Previous albums are No Alibi (2001) and a cd with five songs and poems, SOUTH, produced with her solo performance Moving South (2006).In 2007 she started the independent label Sibyl Sings, which produces music and poetry. On This Ground is the first album on Sibyl Sings. Two cds with music and poetry are in different stages of production. They are albums with poetry and music by Lily herself and one by the English poet Julyen Hamilton.In Amsterdam, Lily played at locations such as KHL Koffiehuis, Winston Kingdom, De Buurvrouw (with Jennifer Terran), OT301, OCCII, Live in the Livingroom, De Cameleon and in the Vondelpark at the finale of Mooie Noten. Her solo performance Moving South, in which poetry, songs and dance live together, she performed at Festival Motel Mozaique in Rotterdam in 2006.Internationally she played in Australia, and New York in 2008. Before that mostly in Seattle, USA (between 1997 and 2001), in a.o. The Rainbow, Mr. Spot’s Chai House, Bumbershoot Festival as singer with JR, Seattle Modern Art Museum and several intimate house concerts. She also played in the north of Sweden, in London, New York and San Francisco, and Basel, Switzerland, both in shared gigs with other musicians and also at open mics to try out new songs , meet local musicians and keep playing.No Alibi has radioplay at radio 98.6 in Berlin and local stations in Hamburg, Spain, Slovenia and Serbia/Montenegro. In 2004, a cd of Palincxk singer Han Buhrs came out, Spam, Scores and Encores, featuring Lily in a few songs. In 2006 her song Swing Set was used in a dance performance that Julyen Hamilton made for dancer Francoise Leick, and which premiered in Paris.Lily has many years of performing experience, both in The Netherlands and internationally, as a dance artist, since1989. In the past few years she has been making dance pieces in which she also uses her own texts and songs. It has always been natural to use dance, music and writing to create work. For long they were made somehow separate from each other. Since 2004 they sometimes live together on stage.Lily sings and plays guitar in a sextet with songs, poems and music, together with Julyen Hamilton (poetry), Michael Moore (clarinet and small instruments), Michael Vatcher (drums),Felicity Provan (cornet and vocals), and Joost Buis (lap steel guitar and trombone).