Rebecca Ramirez – Crescendo Academy of Music
Artist Statement
Rebecca Ramirez is a versatile vocalist, arranger, and educator from Downey, California, with a passion for jazz, R&B, and pop. She has performed as a featured vocalist with a wide range of ensembles across the Los Angeles area. She has won Downbeat awards for Vocal Jazz Soloist, Graduate; Jazz Arranging; and education.
She is pursuing a Master’s in Jazz Voice at Western Michigan University, where she serves as the graduate assistant for the vocal jazz department. Rebecca serves on the faculty at Kalamazoo College as the instructor of applied jazz and contemporary voice.
Rebecca earned her Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from California State University, Long Beach, where she was recognized as an Ella Fitzgerald Scholar. During her time at CSULB, she sang for four years with the internationally recognized Pacific Standard Time and founded the Coastline A Cappella Ensemble, which, under her leadership, earned its first DownBeat Student Music Award in 2024 in the Large Undergraduate Vocal Jazz Ensemble category. She continues to share her love of music through teaching private voice and piano lessons.
Crescendo Academy of Music is a non profit community music school located in the Epic Center in downtown Kalamazoo. Crescendo offers lessons on strings, winds, piano, guitar, mandolin, ukulele, voice, percussion, theory and composition. We offer Music Together, a music and movement class for ages 0-6; group violin classes; Community Voices, an ensemble for adults with intellectual and developmental differences; the Crescendo Fiddlers; chamber ensembles; the Crescendo Community Strings Orchestra, an ensemble for adult amateur string players; and BAM, an ensemble exploring Black American Music. It is also the sponsor of the Kalamazoo Mandolin & Guitar Orchestra.
Venues
