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Channing
Banks was born in Stanford, California, USA on the 18th of March, 1978.
Music has always played a great part in her life. Her grandmother Emily
was an Italian who taught Channing at an early age the joy of singing
and the appreciation of opera. Channing's voice came from her father,
who used to sing on the radio in the early 60's. During her childhood,
Channing's father Richard worked as a Levi's executive, and was often
out of town, which meant that many of the special moments Channing shared
with her father consisted of singing together in the car and dancing together
during special parties.
Channing's parents noticed very early that she was passionate about music
and enrolled her in ballet courses which she took for a number of years.
Her singing career began at about nine years old when she would tape herself
singing to Debbie Gibson and The Beach Boys and created R-and-B sing and
dance shows for friends and family.
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Her
family moved to Seattle, Washington when she was twelve years old and Channing
furthered her knowledge of music by beginning to play the piano and the flute.
She also began writing poetry and sung in her school choir. At 17 she finished
highschool one year before her fellow classmates and took a year off to study
Spanish on a small island in Mexico. During this time, she trained to dance
in the special ceremony for the coronation of the island's carnival queen. Upon
her return to the United States she began her studies at the University of Washington
where she served as the representative of her department and spent 4 months
studying abroad in France. At the time of her graduation in 2000, Channing spoke
3 languages, and her studies and travels had greatly helped her to learn and
appreciate music and poetry from a variety of cultures.
Immediately after graduation, Channing left for a year in Taiwan where she worked
as a teacher. During this year she studied Chinese and Buddism, also winning
a prize in an English poetry contest. Due to a difficult language barrier, she
lived a rather solitary existence, frequently painting and singing to wash away
her loneliness.
After a long year, Channing returned to the United States for the summer during
which she also spent one-month on a French island in the Caribbean. It was there
that her love for music and dance was fully reborn. The following year she lived
in France where Channing spent her free time dancing in a Caribbean dance troop
and learning about Caribbean and French music and culture.
The following summer of 2002, Channing decided to settle down in Italy, where
her music career officially began. Working as an English teacher and living
with a fellow foreigner named Laura, Channing would constantly sing at home.
Laura, noticing her talent, decided to introduce her to a DJ named Gianni who
was searching for an English-speaking singer. It was then that her life changed.
Channing went to meet the DJ one afternoon and they made an appointment to do
a demo. On the day of the appointment, Channing didn't show. Fearing the music
business for its particular reputation, she feared putting herself in an uncomfortable
situation. But Gianni was curious and decided to give her one more chance, calling
her to make another appointment. From that point on, her life made a dramatic
change and Channing knew that music could be her dream come true. Gianni introduced
her to Larry Pignagnoli at Off Limits (Italy's leading music production company)
through Paolo Pignagnoli (Musical Advisor and Talent Scout).
Larry, who has been spotting talent successfully for two decades, offered her
a contract and they began to work on finding the right sound and style to frame
Channing's extraordinarily evocative voice.
