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Esperanza Spalding
If the music world was shocked when Esperanza Spalding became the first jazz act
to win the Best New Artist award at the 2011 Grammys, it was nothing to the
shock Esperanza herself felt. Her unusual Christian name is the Spanish word for
"hope" reflecting a diverse ethnic background - part-Welsh, part-Hispanic,
part-native American - and she grew up in a ghetto raised by her single parent
mother. Naturally gifted, however, Spalding taught herself to play violin by the
time she was five, going on to spend most of her childhood playing with the
Chamber Music Society of Oregon. Draw...
