Dianne Donovan is a recent arrival to Austin – to the United States, in fact! The Montreal-born jazz vocalist spent most of her professional life in Alberta, western Canada, where she studied music and balanced her singing career with her work as a radio host and programmer.

As vocalist with Gary Guthman’s Symphony Pops show, “Tribute to Harry James,” Ms. Donovan worked with many symphony orchestras in Canada and the US In 1997 she released her first CD Yes and No, produced by Canadian jazz icon Tommy Banks. The CD received critical acclaim as well as national airplay.

In 2000, Ms. Donovan released A Musing, an intimate recording featuring mostly original pieces and some co-writes with her longtime musical associate, pianist Andrew Glover.”This is a disc that… establishes the local jazz singer as one of the more creative voices on the western Canadian jazz front… as a lyricist she impresses as she creates a mood, dispensing interesting images and weaving in emotion with clarity and brevity.”
– Peter North, See Magazine.

“…songs that are the epitome of smooth sensuous jazz, offering solace but leaving behind a lingering simmer…”
– Wayne Arthurson, Vue Weekly.

“… very beautiful, moody music…a great CD to curl up with when you’re looking out on an unforgiving landscape of the winter…”
–Katie Malloch, JAZZBEAT, CBC.

Ms. Donovan has been a jazz show host for the last seventeen years in Edmonton, Canada, interviewing jazz greats from Bobby McFerrin to Horace Silver and Shirley Horn. In addition, she wrote a weekly jazz column for the urban Edmonton Vue Weekly.