TERESE GENECCO - BIO
Terese Genecco (pronounced "Teh-REECE Jeh-NECK-oh") is currently the "longest running nightclub act on Broadway," appearing as a headliner at The Iridium Jazz Club in New York City on the Last Tuesday of every month with her 8-piece *little big band* now featuring guest vocalist Nicolas King and the lovely Tropicabana Girls.
Before relocating to NYC, Terese was named the San Francisco-Bay Area's "Entertainer of the Year" after winning the debut category and the overall title in a 2003 Cabaret competition there. Since then, Genecco has appeared on both coasts and around the world in major jazz and concert venues and has garnered even more awards and nominations, including a 2010 MAC Award nomination for Outstanding Major Artist, three 2011 Out Music Award nominations, a 2009 MAC Award win for Outstanding Female Vocalist, a 2009 OUT Music Award win for Best Cabaret/Theatre/Comedy Song, a 2008 MAC Award win for Best Recording, a 2007 Back Stage Bistro Award for Best Tribute Show, a 2008 MAC Award nomination for Outstanding Female Vocalist, a 2006 MAC Award nomination for Best Female Debut Vocalist, and was named to Time Out New York Magazine's Top Ten Best Cabaret Shows List in 2006 and again in 2007. Genecco was also voted one of the Top Ten Best Cabaret Performers and one of the Top Ten Best CD's of 2007 in the Cabaret Hotline Online Members Choice Awards and the Top Ten Best Vocal CD's of 2007 in Rob Lester's 'Sound Advice' column on TheaterMania.com.
Prior to her run on Broadway at The Iridium, Genecco was best known for her award-winning performances of her own jazz-musical creation, "DRUNK WITH LOVE: A TRIBUTE TO FRANCES FAYE!" This show made its world premiere in San Francisco, where it opened at the New Conservatory Theatre Center in July 2005, and ran for five consecutive weeks, before moving to New York City for multiple engagements at The Encore Showroom, Jazz@Lincoln Center, The Iridium Jazz Club, and more than a dozen performances at Manhattan's top cabaret/nightclub, The Metropolitan Room.
Genecco was the late-night headliner during all of 2008 at The Rrazz Room in the Hotel Nikko in downtown San Francisco where she appeared with her 7-piece *little big band* in their raucous Vegas-style nightclub act, "Last Call!" on Saturday nights. Genecco has opened for Grammy-Winning producer/singer STEVE TYRELL at the Bergen Performing Arts Center, headlined the legendary FILLMORE JAZZ FESTIVAL and the MAIN STAGE at SF PRIDE in San Francisco, and has twice appeared in the Mabel Mercer Foundation's Annual Cabaret Convention in Rose Hall at Jazz @ Lincoln Center, New York City. Genecco recently returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand where she appeared with fellow New York City jazz vocalist SHAYNEE RAINBOLT to sold out crowds at The Basement Jazz Club in Sydney, Australia, The Turner Centre in Kerikeri, and The Raye Freedman Arts Center in Auckland, New Zealand.
Genecco has also been recently cast as the co-lead with Broadway stars Eric Kunze and Alexandra Wailes in "Brindlebeast!" a brand new musical gearing up for produced staged readings in New York City and Hartford, CT in the fall of 2011.
Terese recorded her 2008 MAC Award-winning debut CD, "DRUNK WITH LOVE: A TRIBUTE TO FRANCES FAYE!" (her live tribute show) over a week in October of 2006 at The Metropolitan Room in NYC. It was released on the BUG:OUT:MUSIC label in April of 2007, and can be considered a companion piece to Ms. Faye's "Caught In The Act" LP's, which are currently available through GNP Crescendo Records and distributed online through iTunes, Amazon.com and other music retailers.
Genecco recently went into Midtown Sound recording studios in NYC to record her debut single, "If I Was A Boy," now available through CDBABY.COM, iTunes, Amazon.com, etc. The song was written by Maria Gentile and Caren Cole and was nominated for "Love Song Of The Year" and "Single of The Year" by the LGBT Academy of Recording Arts in December 2010.
Ms. Genecco is a graduate of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (BFA in Music Theater) and has appeared in various stage productions, concerts, and solo shows. In addition to her studies at the Syracuse University Drama Department, she has studied voice, piano, percussion, guitar, dance, composition, arrangement, choreography, and acting at the Hochstein/Eastman School of Music, The Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Carnegie-Mellon and Penn State University summer conservatory programs, and with Daniel Marek of the New York Metropolitan Opera. Genecco was lead singer and guitarist in the all-girl rock band, TREMR. She has also penned a full-length stage play, “The Quarry,” which was produced at Pyramid Theater in Rochester, NY; and she has written and performed stand-up comedy and spoken-word poetry.