„Bücher werden nicht nach ihrem Einband beurteilt.“ Eliza Sonnenschein

Jun,2024 | Interview

Singer and songwriter, but also model, theater actress and mother of three, Eliza Sonnenschein is a New Orleans soul artist whom JazzAscona audiences are discovering for the first time this year. Accompanied by a handful of young and talented musicians (Chris Melios on guitar, Evan Washington on bass, Will Feinberg, keys, and Travis Simmons on drums), Eliza immediately won the audience’s affection with her beautiful voice and stage presence. Perfectly at ease on stage, elegant, self-confident, with her braids, outfits and sexy moves she reminds of a pop star, but denies it: «Books,» she says, «are not judged by their covers!».

Eliza Sonnenschein - Portrait Gioele Pozzi JA24

©JazzAscona – Photo credit Gioele Pozzi

Eliza, tell us a little about your life, which seems quite eventful….

I was born in Germany and lived the very first years of my life in Italy because both of my parents – my mom, originally from New Orleans, and my dad, from West Virginia – worked on U.S. Army bases, my dad as a military chaplain. We returned to the States just in time to attend compulsory schools in New Orleans, where I lived until 2005. After Hurricane Katrina we were relocated to Houston. Later I lived in Washington DC, where my father had become pastor of a church. There I attended a cosmetology and make-up school, and once I graduated I returned home to New Orleans.

What makes you feel at home in New Orleans?

Well, even though I have lived in other places it is in New Orleans that I became who I am. My childhood, my friends, the school, the teachers, the guys I dated and fell in love with. In short, everything that makes you an adult I experienced in New Orleans.

Your roots are in the gospel….

Of course! Even before I sang in a choir, from a very young age, I was chirping arias from movies starring Barbara Streisand and Julie Andrews that I saw with my mom, who was a big fan of musicals. From the age of 6 -7, I sang in the church gospel choir.

Over the years, before I became a lead singer and started my own band (The Sunshine Avenue Band) I was a vocalist in many groups in NOLA. A good training ground.

Who are the artists you love the most, your reference points?

There are many, but I would say Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder and Charlie Wilson inspired me a lot vocally. Then Motown music and also jazz, an influence that I think is also felt in my concerts, because I like scat, I like to improvise, all of which probably comes from listening to Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Louis Armstrong.

Eliza Sonnenschein Interview

©JazzAscona – Photo credit Gioele Pozzi

Is music a big part of your life? Are you very active? I hear you’re a mom of three kids. It can’t be easy to balance it all.

Right now my priority is raising my three children, ages 5, 6 and 8. By day I work at the Audburn Nature Institute, a center that has an aquarium, zoo and insectarium and is involved in nature conservation programs. It’s a job that gives me some comfort because it allows me to select the concerts to do, which is a blessing because singing is a lot of work for your body. I love doing concerts, but I am not a robot and I need recovery time and rest. Raising three children then, as all moms know, is a full-time job. I have to balance my strength, it’s not like I can travel as much as I want, doing concerts all the time.

In short, mine is not a hectic business, it is a business that I run so that I can cultivate my passion for music and reconcile my personal life. When my children are older and independent I will have plenty of time to devote myself more to what God created me for, and that is making music.

I read that you are also a model and an actress….

I got into the business as a model. When I was 14 years old I was pretty slender and agencies took me to do music videos, commercials and stuff like that. As a theater actress, I recently made myself known by playing a supporting role — Nicky, who dies at the end (laughs) — in a new production of a Broadway musical inspired by the movie “The Bodyguard” with Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, which was staged at Jazz Market last year.

What are your songs about. Do you write both music and lyrics?

I write the words and melodies and collaborate with musicians on arrangements. My songs tell stories about the big and small things in life, like the emotions I felt the day I learned I was going to become a mother for the first time. The lyrics talk about the reality I observe around me, which of course is not always positive, let alone in a city like New Orleans, which has so many problems, related to violence for example. However, the approach is always positive, because by character I am inclined to not be overwhelmed by problems. It is important not to wallow in pain, but to overcome the bad moments, to live, to travel, to meet people, to have fun, to dance, to love.

Have you already written many songs?

Many, to fill several albums. But so far I’ve only released one EP called «Love Money Music.» Those are the three things we all need to live a decent life.

Are you doing well in Ascona? You’re having quite a success with your band, which consists, it must be said, of excellent young musicians….

Oh yes, it’s fair to point that out. It is really a blessing to be supported by such fantastic musicians! As for Ascona, we feel great, the festival is very nice, it has a family atmosphere, and Ascona is a wonderful little place, full of charm. In a way it reminds me of the French Quarter, which is the historic and most picturesque part of New Orleans. 

One last question, let’s say a curiosity: it’s about your name, which curiously sounds very… German!

Sonnenschein is a stage name, related to a story when I was a baby in Germany. The name comes from the fact that I was born with a disease, jaundice, which made my skin yellow. At that time there was no medicine to treat it, the only remedy they had was to expose you to the sun’s rays. The nurse who was treating me at the hospital took to calling me Sonnenschein Baby. My mother, she later told me, wanted to call me Sunshine but my father objected. There you have the story of my name….

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