Nikki Matheson

Toronto-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/educator. She was raised in Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow, NY, where her major instruments were her voice and the bass clarinet. After attending university in France and the USA, she returned to New York and began performing in the Manhattan folk scene with encouragement from Dave Van Ronk. She co-founded the swing and new acoustic music group Rhythm And Romance with banjoist Akira Satake while playing traditional French and Irish music in The Rentones with fiddler Lisa Gutkin. She performed in the jazz ensemble Swing Street with guitarist Frank Vignola and clarinetist Ken Peplowski. She studied with Grammy®-nominated jazz stylist Janet Lawson and took master classes from Abbey Lincoln and Sheila Jordan. She became a vocal major at Kingsborough College and studied at the New York School of Commercial Music. A 1987 move to Paris resulted in collaborations with Gabriel Yacoub, who had just re-formed his seminal 70s-era folk-rock group, Malicorne. She also worked with chanson legend Georges Moustaki, art-rocker Charlélie Couture, and the avant-garde jazz group Urban Sax. Her career spans many locations and cultures but in the last decade she was based in Vermont.