Jill Tracy is a singer, pianist, writer, composer, and performance artist based in San Francisco.[1]
Known for her dark, evocative, cinematic style, Jill Tracy states that some of her biggest childhood influences were film score composers such as Bernard Herrmann, and classic suspense tales, including Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang films, Ray Bradbury stories, and Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. She is listed in San Francisco Magazine's Top 100 Creative Forces in the Bay Area, has been awarded "Best of the Bay" by San Francisco Bay Guardian, has been nominated for two California Music Awards and SF Weekly Music Awards.
Following her 1996 solo debut CD Quintessentially Unreal, Tracy released Diabolical Streak (1999), her first studio album featuring The Malcontent Orchestra. The song "Evil Night Together" was awarded the SIBL international Grand Prize for songwriting. The album was listed among the "Top 10 Neo-Cabaret albums of all time" in Shift magazine.
"The Fine Art of Poisoning," also from Diabolical Streak, became an animated short film in 2003, a collaboration with Bay Area animator Bill Domonkos. "The Fine Art of Poisoning" has garnered film festival awards internationally, including Best Experimental Film in the 2003 New Orleans Film Festival as well as Best Music Video in both the 2003 Chicago and Seattle International Film Festivals.
Jill Tracy and The Malcontent Orchestra's original score to F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent vampire classic Nosferatu debuted live at San Francisco’s Foreign Cinema in 1999 and toured Northern California theatres during Halloween season for five consecutive years. This led to the 2002 CD release Into the Land of Phantoms, selections from the Nosferatu score.
Jill Tracy released her fourth album, The Bittersweet Constrain, in 2008 produced by Alex Nahas. This album has a heavier sonic edge with the addition of exotic instruments such as the sarod, harmonium, and Chapman Stick. This first single and video from The Bittersweet Constrain is "Haunted by the Thought of You."
Contents |