Stevie Holland

Stevie Holland brings a jazz vocal approach steeped in cabaret traditions, honoring musical legacies while avoiding rigid adherence to convention. The New York singer typically bypasses overfamiliar numbers such as “My Funny Valentine” in favor of neglected reaches within the Great American Songbook or her own songs, developed with arranger and husband Gary William Friedman. Raised in affluent Westchester County outside New York City by a musically oriented family of Norwegian and Italian lineage, Holland performs a Norwegian-language love song she wrote herself, drawn from a theme by national hero Edvard Grieg, on the 2004 album Restless Willow. She trained in musical theater at New York University. Early work encompassed acting and singing roles off-Broadway and in touring productions of Broadway shows, alongside appearances on the New York cabaret circuit throughout the 1990s. During that time she also began composing her own lyrics and met Friedman, a musical theater composer who had supplied songs for the 1970s children’s television series The Electric Company. Following their marriage, Holland starred in his religiously themed musical The Last Supper, an endeavor that led the pair to record an album of original spiritual and inspirational material issued as Do You Ever Dream in 2000. They next released the benefit single “This Is America,” written and rushed into distribution after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York City and Washington. Returning thereafter to cabaret and jazz venues, Holland issued the small-combo jazz sets Almost Like Being in Love in 2003, Restless Willow in 2004, More Than Words Can Say in 2006, and Before Love Has Gone in 2008, each combining standards with original pieces.