Melody Diachun (born December 30, 1968) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and recording artist. She won the Jazz Artist of the Year award at the 2023 Western Canadian Music Awards.[1]
Biography
Diachun was born in Montréal, Québec and raised in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.[2] Singing from an early age accompanied by her father Bill Diachun, a part-time singer and piano player, she began piano lessons at age 6[2] and played French horn and electric bass through junior and senior high school. At age 15 she took her first professional singing gig.[2] At age 17 Diachun moved back to Montréal to attend McGill University where she was the first vocalist admitted to the school's Jazz Performance Program.[2][3] Diachun earned her Bachelor of Music degree "with distinction" in Jazz Voice in 1994.[2] After university, Diachun moved to New York City to study briefly with jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan[2][4] under a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.[5]
In 1997, Diachun moved to Western Canada and began a long-term engagement at the Banff Springs Hotel where she met her future husband, guitarist, bassist, and mixing engineer Doug Stephenson.[4] From 2000 to 2012 Diachun worked as a freelance vocalist in Vancouver, British Columbia.[2] In 2012, Diachun began teaching at the Contemporary Music & Technology Program at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia. She took on the role of School Chair of the School of the Arts[6] at Selkirk College in August 2022.
