About
"To jazz is to live...
...and to Jazz is to give all your bebop from inside out..." Cornelia Moore
“…Just hearing her sing on a recording, you are drawn by her expressive nature. Seeing her on stage takes you to quite another level. Cornelia doesn't just sing, she lives what she sings…”
Lionel Haas/Jazz Radio Berlin
"Connie Moore has discovered the voice that rested deep in her soul." Jean-Paul Bourelly
“To jazz is to live and to jazz is to give all your bebop from
inside out.” This line from Cornelia Moore’s own lyrics to Dizzy Gillespie’s “Bebop” captures her essence: an artist who sings, writes, and creates with every fiber of her being. Through sound, she paints worlds—delicate, vulnerable, deeply human—inviting listeners into places where emotion is both truth and liberation..
Born and raised in Hannover, Germany, Cornelia first heard the call of music in the dusty resonance of her grandmother’s forgotten piano. What began as childhood curiosity soon became her lifeline. Music opened doors—into beauty, spirit, and an inner reality that felt more authentic than the emotional restraint she perceived around her in 1960s and ’70s Germany.
By age six, she knew she would one day be a singer.
Her introduction to jazz came when her father took the family to the local jazz festival. Something clicked instantly. Swing, improvisation, freedom—the language of jazz felt like home. Composing small pieces replaced practicing Burgmueller etudes, and improvisation replaced inhibition. “In music,” Cornelia recalls, “I found the opposite of ‘verboten’:
the freedom to feel, to explore, to be.”
Cornelia’s education unfolded through years of dedicated study and mentorship with renowned teachers including Sheila Jordan, Rudy Stevenson, Anita Moore, Margarete Seyd, Carnatic masters Kamalesh Maitra and Prof. T.V. Gopalakrishnan, and guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly. From them, she learned not only musical craft but also the deeper art of listening—to sound, to intuition, to the body. Each teacher offered a distinctive spark; Cornelia absorbed their wisdom and transformed it into her own continuum of expression. These foundations would later become essential to her work as an author and developer of a distinctive method of sound healing.
Her emotionally transparent four-octave range, her deep affinity for melodic nuance, and her imaginative rhythmic-harmonic sense have long been recognized by musicians and audiences alike. She has collaborated with an array of respected artists - Walter Norris, Benny Bailey, Hal Singer, Jimmy Woode, Rudy Stevenson, Calvin Hill, Earl Bostic, Ed Schuller, Kevin Burrell, Mack Goldsbury, Regis Molina, Piotr Wojtasik, Felix Lehrmann to name but a few - and has led her own group since 1999.
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Throughout the years, pianist-composer-arranger Reggie Moore, her soul mate in life and music, has remained Cornelia’s most important "partner in crime". “Whenever we rehearse or perform, Reggie miraculously anticipates my every notion, my every sentiment. I know I can do anything - take any chance - and he will be right there, throwing it back at me, challenging me always. He has a great sense of humor! I feel that our joint project Moore & Mo(o)re is really a continuous inner workshop situation, where every musician involved is invited to contribute original ideas and compositions.
It is a space where we freely and creatively share and develop our concepts.“
Yet behind the performances was always a deeper inquiry:
What is sound, and what does it do to us?
In 2010, a life-threatening illness and severe spinal injury silenced Cornelia’s active performance career. But the interruption became an initiation. Turning inward, she began a years-long investigation into the relationship between voice, vibration, the spine, the meridian and nervous systems, and the human capacity for healing. Music became not just expression, but medicine—a way of understanding the body from the inside.
This journey culminated in her 2023 book, THE SONG WITHIN, a richly researched, deeply personal exploration of sound’s transformative power. Blending science, lived experience, and spiritual inquiry, the book invites readers to rediscover their own innate musicality and the healing intelligence embedded in vibration.
“Cornelia sings from a deep place,
her voice resonates lush and low....(she) places her words with soulful dignity...
"...Cornelia's singing is heartfelt and dramatic; it’s dark beauty is haunting...”
Ferdinand Maylin/Jazz Now
“…the most unique jazz voice since Betty Carter...” Ralph van Duncan
"She has been a revelation personally, musically and aesthetically. Rarely does one find artists...with such sensitivity coupled with musical genius. Cornelia has an open mind to all that is beautiful in the world of music and also an exquisite flair in the use of the human voice to the best effect." Prof. Dr. TV Gopalakrishnan
Now, at 61, Cornelia has regained fluid speech, has evolved her singing voice, and is as deeply immersed in creative life as ever—currently preparing to record her musical children’s book, HUMPTY. Her work is a testament to resilience, creative intuition, and the extraordinary power of sound to restore and transform.
In 2025, Cornelia relocated from Berlin, Germany - her home of over 40 years - to Astoria, NY. Her future plans include pursuing her compositional visions, and sharing her genuine continuum of sound healing. Applying her experienced knowledge to the education, training, and coaching of performing artists, Cornelia is especially committed to helping singers, actors, and voice artists who are suffering the consequences of structural injury and trauma.