AcoustiMix: Discoveries — Daphne Gampel

Today we'd like to tell you about Daphne Gampel

A singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City, Daphne Gampel's jazz and folk infused pop music bares the traces of an eclectic musical background. The daughter of a widely celebrated, Paris-based concert pianist, Daphne grew up steeped in classical music and began learning classical guitar at the age of five. At 14, she began formal vocal training at New York City’s prestigious LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts. While at Wesleyan University, Daphne studied jazz, composition, and South Indian percussion, and ethnomusicology under the tutelage of Noah Baermann, Jay Hoggard, Tyshawn Sorey, Jane Alden, David Nelson, and B. Balusubrahmaniyan.

Daphne’s devotion to music education has lead to a number of mentoring positions, including Co-Director of the Massillon Conservatory Children's Choir in Paris, and Songwriting Fellow for the Middletown Lullaby Project. As a songwriter and composer, she is a National Young Arts Foundation and Songwriters Association of Washington award recipient and 2018 Johnny Mercer Songwriter’s Project Fellow. In 2019, Daphne entered the film world, writing original music for the award winning short film KARAOKE SUPERSTAR. In 2018, Daphne’s Davenport grant award propelled her research into the project Above the Noise, a contemporary oratorio, whose original score received the Gwen Livingston Pokora Prize for musical composition in 2019.

Recent release: Gampel’s debut full length album Eventide is an all-original collection featuring her eclectic style. You’ll hear traces of the more distant past, with ethereal multi-tracked harmonies reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, vocal dexterity that evokes Sarah Vaughan, and a sense of intimacy of delivery suggestive of Roberta Flack, while at the same time bringing in sounds of more contemporary vocalists such as Nai Palm, Erykah Badu, and Amy Winehouse. Her fluency in jazz informs her sound but is not overbearing, rather serving to enhance the twists and turns of her creative yet exceptionally catchy original songs. 

Also check out: I originally discovered Gampel’s music through her Instagram, where she continues to work on a project posting 100 songs, often covering requests from comments in previous days’ posts. The clips are raw and informal, but quickly pull you into Gampel’s unique vocal talents and put a delightfully diverse array of songs on display. If you’re on Insta, definitely give her a follow there!

You can also find Daphne Gampel on Facebook and YouTube. (If you go to YouTube, be sure to subscribe to their channel!)