What’s in a name?

Coral Wilson

Claudia Acuna has always been in love with jazz, though in the

beginning, she didn’t know what it was called. She was just doing

what she loved, singing in a small club in Chile, when someone said

to her, “You are a jazz singer.”

Then she had a name for it -- jazz.

“I am just singing,” Acuna says.

And Acuna will be singing locally on Feb. 7 and 8 in Founders Hall

at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

She will be performing alongside composer/pianist Billy Childs who

was one of the first to introduce jazz to the Center in 1989.

Childs and Acuna have worked together in the past, collaborating

for her “Rhythm of Life” CD.

“We have a deep, beautiful connection, and the music is a

beautiful journey every time I have the chance to work with him,”

Acuna says.

Acuna reinvents English and Spanish classics in addition to

original pieces. Her music is an expression of Latin and Western

cultures, because that is who she is.

Her music took her from Chile to New York at the age of 24, and

then around the world. Now after traveling through Japan, Turkey,

Greece, France and Italy, she is as Latin as ever.

“I am a Latin woman no matter where I live. I could live in China,

but I’m always going to be a girl from South America,” Acuna says.

But when she returned to Chile recently, to perform for the first

time in Santiago, it was clear that she was from a different world.

In America she had grown into a woman, but in essence she says she is

still the same.

“Certainly, I’ve changed. No one stays the same, but the essence

of you doesn’t change. You’ve grown, you’ve developed, you learn,”

she says.

Her music reflects and celebrates her deep appreciation for other

cultures and her respect for her own culture, believing that no one

is alone and that everyone is searching for the same thing -- love

and peace.

She just asks her audience to come with open hearts, minds and

ears, and she hopes people will return home a little happier.

“I bring who I am and who I have become as a unique person, like

many of us who have traveled and moved out of our countries looking

for our voices,” she says.