artist Holly Cole

There is an intelligence and sophistication to Holly Cole’s singing that sets her apart. She can imbue well-worn standards and eclectic songs with an uncanny combination of sensuality, innocence, originality and sheer musicality.  A Canadian icon, Ms. Cole has a long and storied international career, having sold hundreds of thousands of recordings in the U.S., Japan and Germany. These echo her success at home, including multi-platinum sales awards, three Junos and two Gemini Awards. She takes tunes everybody thinks they know and discovers new undercurrents in the venerable anthems of contemporary composers, wrapping her honesty, compassion and sardonic wit around their sometimes-fragile creations. The results are smart, sexy, provocative, sometimes dangerous- and never, ever dull.  “I look at the essence of a song,” muses Ms. Cole, “If it’s a great lyric I often love to slow it down, explore it, dissect it and deconstruct it. I love to take it apart and then put it back together and look at it in an entirely different way. In the process, it often becomes more evocative. That’s a huge part of my art form, that’s a huge part of what I do.”