Background
Hello, my name is Naledi and I’m a piano teacher & musician based in Portobello, Edinburgh.
My late father was a jazz musician and music producer—growing up, my home was filled with sounds of world music, jazz, funk and soul. My father wrote and performed with South African jazz fusion bands Kintone, District Six, Estudio and Spirits Rejoice to name a few. He was also a music producer, notably working with pianist Bheki Mseleku on the albums Celebration, and Meditation featuring Courtney Pine, Michael Bowie and Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith among others.
My parents got me into Piano lessons at age 4 and I later picked up the Clarinet. I received classical training in both instruments and progressed through my ABRSM graded exams. At age 9 I auditioned for the junior school at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (formerly known as Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama). I was extremely fortunate to be awarded a place in the school and received scholarships to attend. During my 6 years at the RSAMD I was a part of orchestra, choir and wind orchestra, and was involved in piano competitions, chamber groups, accompanist work, and a piano duo.
Further education
As a young adult I followed in my father’s footsteps and took an interest in recording and producing music. I studied Sound Production at Edinburgh College and graduated with my HND qualification in 2012. At around the same time I started to write music, and despite my classical beginnings, ended up making music influenced by pop, soul, RnB and hiphop. I performed my first songs at local open mic nights and transitioned into releasing music online. You can hear one of my early songs ‘Forever in the Rain‘ on YouTube.
Original music
In 2013 I formed a hiphop-RnB duo with Edinburgh-based producer Nasty P. We released ‘The DarkSoul EP‘ and went on to perform at venues and festivals such as King Tuts, Sneaky Petes, Kelburn Garden Party, Audio Soup and supported Jamie Cullum at the Usher Hall Edinburgh.
In recent years I sang lead vocals and wrote the music for 7-piece neosoul band Mother All Mighty. We played numerous Scottish music festivals, supported Ibibio Sound Machine and Nimbus Sextet, and have notably played the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh and Drygate, Glasgow among others. We were commissioned by The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues festival to write music for their 2020 online series, and our single ‘MAM‘ was recognised as ‘track of the week’ by BBC Introducing Scotland.
Piano teacher
I continued my studies and went on to receive a Diploma in Piano teaching with Distinction from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. I am a full-time Piano teacher based in Portobello, Edinburgh and have been teaching for over 10 years. I love my work as a teacher and have continued on to study a master’s of education at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
There is a page of my website which is dedicated to piano teaching where you can find out all about lessons and my teaching approach. Please click on the ‘piano lessons’ tab at the top of the page for more information.
Session vocalist
Alongside teaching, I enjoy collaborating on music projects both in the recording studio and in live settings. If you have a song, project or beat you’d like to work on, take a look at the Session Vocals page and feel free to get in touch.
