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cello, voice, film

Sylvie Grace is an LA born and based, Chicago raised, cellist, singer songwriter, composer and creative director. She began singing at the age of 6, and after a few years of group lessons she “fused” with jazz, coining Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Slap That Bass’ her signature number. At age 9, she began cello, inclined as with singing, and soon after moving to Chicago in 2005 participated in her highschool’s orchestra, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, chamber groups within the program and with her private teacher, the Oak Park River Forest Symphony Orchestra and various solo projects well into highschool. She began writing her own music at 18, and growing up amidst whats referred to as the Chicago Renaissance, that shifted the worlds attention to the city with names like Chance the Rapper and many others, defining and exploring her creative identity through her community. She appears on music from Kevin Abstract, Alex Wiley, Stefan Ponce, Pell, Deem Spencer, Jay Prince, Mick Jenkins, theMind, Kweku Collins, Melo, Chuck Strangers, Femdot, and many more.

Amidst collaborations over the years, Sylvie street performed in downtown Chicago every summer from junior year of highschool on, and took this practice with her to Art Basel Miami, throughout New York and Los Angeles when/where she’s had other shows or work, Nashville, whilst on tour playing in the group FKA as Girlyboi, and when she had no official show of her own, SXSW. Her love of visual arts from throughout her life led her to collaborations with artists, from playing exhibitions to scoring them, and in 2017 her image as a street performer was commemorated by fine artist and AIR crew member Caesar Perez in a 3 story mural in her adopted neighborhood of Pilsen, still present today. Piecing together skills of songwriting, recording and performing, through peers and experience, the first class of the Remix Project Chicago, her becoming is felt in her expansive creative exploration. Her live performances consist of her, her cello, loop pedal, and a drummer, the mix is tailored to her blue, sweet, anxious and disruptive music for a fully intentional experience. She began working with producer Ludlow on her debut LP in 2015 and is currently set to release 2 ‘versions’ of this project, bringing one voice to both the live and produced spaces in which she resides. The songs posted to her soundcloud dating back to 2013 lace together jazz, folk, Neo soul, lyrics with rap-like cadences, lo-fi and ‘future beats’ production. Previews and teasers of songs in the form of clips of her playing at home litter her social media, carry deep, soft and gritty inclinations. Alongside affirming and broadening the realm of possibility of and for instrumentalists, Grace’s LP’s and related work, her goals lie in film scoring, education and mentorship. She believes the kinds of ideas characterized as juxtopositions have lit fires for cultural revolution for centuries, beyond the obvious bridge gapping to a polarized world.

Sylvie is currently enrolled at Pasadena City College, curating productions in Chicago, and working and recording in Los Angeles.