Ithamara Koorax (born April 28, 1965) is a Brazilian jazz and pop singer. She was born to a family of Polish Jews who fled Europe during World War II.[1][2] In her youth Koorax studied piano, opera, and classical music while listening to her parents' collection of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, and Teddy Wilson.[2] For influences she has cited Elizete Cardoso, Elis Regina, Betty Carter, Carmen McRae, and Flora Purim, particularly Purim's album Stories to Tell, which inspired her choice of careers.[2]
When she was eighteen years old, she worked as a backup singer for commercials and for pop stars in Brazil.[2] Among those artists were Tim Maia and Vicente Viola.
Koorax's jazz-pop album "Got to Be Real," produced and arranged by Arnaldo DeSouteiro, was released worldwide in March 2012 by IRMA Records, with critical acclaim and immediate sales.
A bossa nova album, "The Girl from Ipanema - Ithamara Koorax Sings Getz/Gilberto," on which she revisited the material from the legendary album "Getz/Gilberto" (1964) recorded by Stan Getz and João Gilberto, and the dance-oriented electronic project "Ecstasy," were also released in 2013.
Koorax has performed in the U.S., Japan, Korea and many European countries (England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Finland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Portugal), appearing at jazz festivals in London, Seoul, Belgrade, Funchal, Helsinki, and Indijja. She has performed classical and fusion concerts with symphony orchestras, appearing at the Theatro Minicipal do Rio de Janeiro (RJ) with the Petrobras Symphony and at the Ibirapuera Auditorium (São Paulo) with the Orquestra Jazz Sinfônica.
In 2010, she performed 47 concerts in Brazil and 51 abroad, having toured Europe and Asia. On tour in August 2010, she recorded Arirang with Korean pop stars, Brazilian musicians Rodrigo Lima, Arnaldo DeSouteiro and Wilson Chaplin, and American jazzmen Lee Ritenour and Alan Broadbent.
Koorax's crossover classics project Opus Classico (2013) contained works by Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Wagner, Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos, Delza Agricola, Chiquinha Gonzaga and Machado de Assis. Her album All Around the World (2014) was recorded live in Rio, London, Paris, Sofia, Munich, Tokyo, and Seoul, with songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Jorge Ben, Marvin Gaye, Herbie Hancock, and Jimi Hendrix.
