Biography
Born in Paris to a singing mother and a pianist father, Ilona Knopfler took to performance almost immediately, appearing at six during the launch of a major hotel in Hong Kong. Worldwide travels with her parents followed, and by fifteen she was already working as a backup singer for a rock band in Hong Kong when jazz first drew her interest. Over the next three years she sang regularly with a trio and, at times, with two big bands at a Hong Kong jazz club. At eighteen she relocated to New York City, spending five years there studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Since then she has divided her time between Atlanta and Paris. Her first Mack Avenue album, Some Kind of Wonderful, presents rock and pop songs reframed in jazz arrangements, whereas the 2005 release Live the Life finds her supported by an all-star jazz group on standards—an effort that left a strong impression.