RACHAEL CONTORER has played in a wide variety of jazz formats over the past twenty years, from a small jazz duo with a guitarist (Ten String Jazz) to nearly every jazz orchestra in Seattle, including eleven years with the Seattle Women's Jazz Orchestra, with whom she had the singular experience of playing the Lima Jazz Festival in Peru. She has played in a swing/pop/R&B band that has performed at hundreds of events since 2007, taking over band-leading duties six years ago. A freelance musician, she responds to whomever calls, so you never know where she'll turn up!
MELANIE MORALEZ has called several cities her home, but after graduating from art school in Minneapolis over a decade ago, she chose to make Seattle her home. She's been teaching guitar through her business String Lark Lessons since 2012 and is a high school, art and music, teacher at Eastside Academy. She exhibits her artwork locally and sells her paintings online through her business, Lark Art. Melanie also enjoys getting together with other musicians to make music and performs regularly. Thanks to the local Hot Club Jazz/Swing Jazz community, she finally discovered her true-love-genre and there's been no looking back. Melanie is also in a band called Byron Street Swing, and a duo with classically trained guitarist, Alex Lew, called Deco Django.
JENNIE KONG MAYER has a classical piano and flute background. She started beginning guitar in 2014 at Bellevue College, where she teaches chemistry. This led to blues guitar lessons which led to classic rock and a personal appreciation for Jimi Hendrix. But her first love (swing, jazz, and the American Songbook) was revisited after meeting Pearl Django and taking courses at Jazz Night School in 2015, where it first became possible to play the music she always wanted to play. Jennie is currently playing guitar and melodica with the Zoot Alors Quartet and the Hepcat Remix Project, which fuses hot club swing with contemporary pop (Django Reinhardt meets Lady Gaga!)
INGRID MATHEWS started playing jazz after a long career as a baroque violinist. After winning first prize in the Bodky International Competition for Early Music in 1989, she co-founded the Seattle Baroque Orchestra and served as its Music Director from 1994-2-13; she has performed around the worldas a soloist, chamber musician and guest director with groups including the New York Collegium, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Bach Sinfonia (Washington DC), Musica Pacifica (San Francisco),and many others, and has recorded extensively. She studied jazz violin with Michael Gray of Pearl Django and enjoys jams and sit-ins with many area musicians. She is also active as a visual artist. ingridmathews.com
ADRIENNE REED grew up studying classical piano. After accompanying elementary school choirs and running a piano studio from her home in Seattle for several years, it was a natural extension of Adrienne’s interest in swing dancing and dual Franco-American citizenship that led her to study jazz piano and accordion and the music of Django Reinhardt, guided by her destiny with Lulu Swing.
* Special gratitude to Eve Sun, vocalist, who has performed most shows with Lulu Swing*
