How singer Alemay Fernandez learnt more about herself through music

SINGAPORE — She’s one of Singapore’s highly rated jazz singers. However, despite having years of experience doing the live circuit and appearing at various events, including the National Day Parade in 2014, Alemay Fernandez has never released an album before.

All that will change on Saturday (July 9) when she finally releases her debut effort, Hard To Imagine, with an album launch concert at the Esplanade Recital Studio that is sold out.

The album is a collection of originals and covers, featuring 20 musicians and singers from around the world, including Richard Jackson, Michaela Therese, Vanessa Fernandez, trumpet player Steven Cannon, bassist William Gathright, keyboardist Chok Kerong and drummer Erik Hargrove.

The music is varied, from soul funk to a cappella to straight jazz. “You can still hear my jazz roots, but I think that there is something for everybody on the album,” she said.

“It is a bit like I’m giving birth to a baby,” Fernandez said, “except that this one took five years to make.”

She said that there were several reasons why it took so long. One was because she took a hands-on approach to the album: She is co-producing with Shawn Letts (one of the most notable musicians in Singapore who also performs on the album), as well as having a hand in arranging and composing some of the songs.

“I was trying things out for the first time,” she said.

The songwriting, said Fernandez, was a slow process. “Shawn encouraged me to write for the album. Prior to this, I was afraid of doing so,” said Fernandez. “I saw myself more as a performer. I was sceptical about my ability to write. I’m no Billy Joel or Stevie Wonder.”

However, Letts gave her a “tutorial in songwriting” and walked her through. “I would come in with lyrics and he would help me make sense of the melodies. He said, ‘use your instinct’.”

Waiting for the musicians to make themselves available for the recording also took time (“As soon as I saw on their Facebook page that they’re coming to town, I quickly contacted them to ask if they had time to do a recording”); as did finding the funding for the album, which was mostly recorded at Singapore’s famed Lion Studios.

“I would do gigs and work to earn the money, then use it for the recording, paying the musicians and all that. Then I have to work again to earn more money,” said Fernandez, adding that she got by with a little help from her friends and her sister, who set up the ABAF (Alemay Birthday Album Fund), where she asked all of Fernandez’s friends not to give presents for her birthday, but instead put some money into funding her album.

While Fernandez said she hoped the people in Singapore would want to get the album, she also hoped she could travel with it. “I plan to do an Asian city tour—such as Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, possibly Shanghai, and even to Australia, like Perth, where they have a great scene,” she said.

Her ultimate goal is to do as many international music festivals as possible. “I want to do the European festivals, such as in Scandinavia, Germany and Russia—yes, Russians love jazz, I don’t know why or how, but I’m not going to question it,” she quipped.

“I’m very interested to hear what people think about the music.”

Not surprisingly for Fernandez, the album is more than merely a collection of songs. “It’s a diary of my musical journey. Every song took place in a different point in those five years, when different things were happening to me. They’re like milestones,” she said.

According to her, the stakes are much higher when one is doing an album. “You are more involved in everything. There are suddenly, like, 100 things to think about that you never thought about before, from what microphones to use, to where people stand in the studio.”

She continued: “I have learnt more about myself by doing this album. It has made me understand how I look at the world, how I feel about my music and the different events that have happened in my life. It has opened my eyes (about making music).”