Alba Nacinovich was born in Rijeka in 1986 and came close to music very early, singing at various children's song festivals such as the international
Zecchino d'Oro where she won the "Zecchino d'Argento" in 1993. She started to take piano lessons from prof. Roberto Haller and took part in some theatre pieces at the Croatian National Theatre
Ivan pl. Zajc both as actress and soundtrack's vocal performer. In 2003 she won the 1st prize at the Rijeka's
Gitarijada rock festival with the band
Matriz. She figures on Damir Halilić Hal and Crooks & Straight's records. At present, she's attending the Jazz Course at the
"Giuseppe Tartini" Conservatory in Trieste, Italy, under the guide of professors Glauco Venier, Marcello Tonolo, Stefano Bellon, Carla Marcotulli and Klaus Gesing. As part of the Erasmus Student Exchange Programme, she "migrated" for a semester at the
Escola Superior de Música e das Artes do Espectáculo in Porto, Portugal, where she studied with professors Michael Lauren, Sofia Ribeiro and Paulo Perfeito. Over the last few years she attended masterclasses and workshops with (among others): Stefano Bollani, Diana Torto, Ohad Talmore NewsReel (featuring Shane Endsley, Jacob Sacks, Matt Pavolka, Dan Weiss), Harjo Pasveer, Pedro Madaleno.
Leo Å kec was born in Rijeka in 1985 and began playing the guitar at the age of 16. In 2003, after taking some basic guitar lessons, he was introduced to the Lovran Wind Orchestra (
PuhaÄki Orkestar Lovran) by his teacher Zoran DumiÄić – Duma. There he learned to play rhythm and lead guitar and became familiar with different stlyes such as rock, pop, jazz and latin music. As a member of
P.O.L. and of the
Josip Pepi Forembacher's Big Band, Leo played with some of the most popular artists of the Croatian pop and jazz scene, such as Gibonni, Oliver Dragojević, Severina, Elvis Stanić, Lela & Joe Kaplowitz, Meri Trošelj, Marko Tolja and Tina Vukov. Together with Franjo Črnjarić on alto saxophone, in 2004 Duma and Leo formed a band called
Puma i Tri Lava and began to play jazz standards, and the year after they founded the band
LoveRunners with Boris KaÄić on percussion and Alba Nacinovich on vocals.
Alba&Leo turned soon out to lead the project, choosing and arranging most of the songs, mostly from artists such as Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Sara K and Vaya Con Dios. In summer 2007, thanks to Lela and Joe Kaplowitz Alba&Leo were given the opportunity to perform as a duo, so they took some songs from LoveRunners' repertoire, made some new arrangements and started to play gigs. In January 2008 they recorded 6 songs for promotional purposes, and after a 6 months break (due to Alba's studying in Potrugal) they continued to perform better than ever, making their appearance at the Jazz na Kosnice in Mošćenice and at the Last Minute Jazz Festival in Bale.
Next on Alba&Leo's minds is to record some originals that were written over the last few years (and have little to deal with the material presented until today :)
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