Melody Diachun


Melody Diachun is a Canadian singer, songwriter and recording artist. She won the Jazz Artist of the Year award at the 2023 Western Canadian Music Awards.

Biography

Diachun was born in Montréal, Québec and raised in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Singing from an early age and accompanied by her father Bill Diachun, a part-time singer and piano player, she began piano lessons at age 6 and played French horn and electric bass through junior and senior high school. At age 15 she took her first professional singing gig. At age 17 Diachun moved back to Montréal to attend McGill University where she was the first vocalist admitted to the school's Jazz Performance Program. Diachun earned her Bachelor of Music degree "with distinction" in Jazz Voice in 1994. After university, Diachun moved to New York City to study briefly with jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan under a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
In 1997, Diachun moved to Western Canada and began a long-term engagement at the Banff Springs Hotel where she met her future husband, guitarist, bassist, and mixing engineer Doug Stephenson. From 2000 to 2012 Diachun worked as a freelance vocalist in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2012, Diachun began teaching at the Contemporary Music & Technology Program at Selkirk College in Nelson, British Columbia. She took on the role of School Chair of the School of Arts & Technology at Selkirk College in August 2022.

Awards and honours

! scope="row" | 2023
! scope="row" | 2019
! scope="row" rowspan="2" | 2019
! scope="row" | 2018
! scope="row" | 2018
! scope="row" | 2009
! scope="row" | 2008
! scope="row" | 2008

Discography

As leader

Lullaby of the Leaves Dreams & Places EQ Get Back to the Groove

As guest