Just talking with Canadian bel canto Roxanna, via Skype, from her base in Toronto, it's pretty obvious what makes her such a great singer.
In speech alone, Roxanna's voice is a clear, confident one. She phrases answers--lithe and limber, with excellent intonation--like her best musical lines. Her voice draws you in with equal parts information and compassion.
Soothing, never strident, Roxanna makes you want to listen to her.
Call it her bedside manner; it's something she first learned as a registered nurse.
"I do believe that music can heal," Roxanna says. "In fact, that's how my singing career got started. I had a very sick patient who I just started humming to. To soothe him, really. He responded so well that his father soon became my sponsor."
It's that same kind of emotional response, warm and immediate, one has to Roxanna's newest song, "Close Your Eyes."
A lush, exquisitely wrought ballad written by Lindy Robbins and Mark Portmann (industry royalty who've penned hits for the likes of Celine Dion, Backstreet Boys and Nick Lachey), "Close Your Eyes" is the second single from the singer's forthcoming Exotica album--via her own indie label, Roxart, Inc.
Asked why she chose the independent route, again, Roxanna responds in kind.
"I have a very deep connection to the music here, beyond just the notes on the page, so I wanted to make [Exotica] something of my own," she says. "It's like when you're in the kitchen, cooking your own meals. You know exactly what's going into the meal."
"And when you're in the studio with people you trust," Roxanna notes, "you can get the sounds that you, yourself, want every single time."
Apropos, then, "Close Your Eyes" was the first song she recorded for Exotica. It was a process that, despite the grand final sound you hear, Roxanna maintains was intimate and "organic."
"My vocals were done in a relatively small studio out in Los Angeles. And while the huge 100-piece orchestra that accompanies me was recorded separately, I never felt disconnected from the production," she says.
Perhaps that's why the recording studio, itself, figures so prominently in Classicalite's exclusive video premiere of Roxanna's "Close Your Eyes."
Watch it, like it, share it. And as she sings so resplendent here, you'll find that all your worries will indeed melt away.
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