Alejandra Ribera Trio

On the inside of her right wrist, Alejandra Ribera has an elegant tattoo. A single word, it reads: Escuchame
Translated from Spanish, it says: “listen to me”
And so you should. Listen to her voice, and her songs, her passionate approach to a wide variety of music, and her attitude on stage almost demands you pay attention.

This is an artist with international roots — born in Toronto to an Argentinian waiter and a Scottish actress, raised in the heart of the city’s gay village — and a style that seems to remind her listeners of Edith Piaf, Lhasa, Tom Waits and a louder, more powerful Joan Armatrading.

Now in her mid-twenties, Ribera’s disarming humour — on and off stage — contrasts with her frequently dark material, and an unconventional life that’s been full of adventures and misadventures: travel, jobs in science labs and burger-joints, and energy healing. The resumé includes four days at York University’s vocal jazz programme (she dropped out to go to the mountains of Slovakia and study with a witch doctor, honest) and childhood music studies (violin, viola, choral music).

She had spent her teenage years listening to the music and the passion of such varied artists as Odetta, Mercedes Sosa and Jimmy Scott, and her evenings sneaking into seedy gay piano bars and cabarets. These artists — and dozens more — shaped the multi-dimensional, multi-genre repertoire that is Alejandra’s hallmark today, and is at the same time her greatest weakness and her greatest strength.

Alejandra Ribera is a musical force of nature. And she is on the verge of far wider acceptance. A new CD is gestating, and new songs fill the notebook she carries everywhere she goes. Her performances are full of life and confidence.