Juliana Strangelove, the Russian Contralto Rock singer with a unique, dark, and powerful profondo voice, has released a new single with two fantastic tracks: Obsession/Moscow Heterosexual Blues.

Obsession is a foot-tapping pop-fest, with a real feel-good atmosphere. Moscow Heterosexual Blues is a darker, edgier, rock song with a driving, pulsating bass-line.

Juliana is a true Contralto Profondo, with a range that stretches down to F2!!

You can listen to her songs below, and check out her video for Moscow Heterosexual Blues. You can support Juliana by purchasing her sings at Amazon, Google Play, or iTunes.

You can also check out her Website, her Facebook Page, Twitter Account, and Instagram.

Hallbjörg Bjarnadóttir was a Contralto Profondo with a very wide vocal range from Akranes in Iceland.

She was able to sing from Soprano to Bass, but her strongest register was her chest register, which gave her a powerful Tenor/Baritone sound.

 Hallbjörg studied in Denmark, and lived there for a large part of her life. She also lived for a time in the United States. She moved to Iceland in 1992.

She had a twin sister named Kristbjörg.

Yıldız İbrahimova (Bulgarian: Йълдъз Ибрахимова, Yaldaz Ibrahimova, Turkish: Yıldız İbrahimova) (b. 1952 in Silistra) is a Bulgarian singer of Turkish ancestry. She is one of the most popular jazz singers in Europe. Besides jazz she has also recordedBulgarian, Turkish, Gypsy and Russian folk songs. Yildiz Ibrahimova has participated in tours in over 40 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa. She married Ali Dinçer, a leading Turkish politician, also born in Bulgaria and former mayor ofAnkara in 1993. Since then she has lived in Turkey. Her husband died on April 18, 2007.

She graduated with honours in Musical School "Lyubomir Pipkov” with major in opera singing, and later on, she graduated theory of music in the National Academy of Music.

Her debut as an artist was in 1975 with jazz quartet of Mario Stanchev. Subsequently she worked with musicians like Liubomir Denev, Ognian Videv, Vesselin Nikolov, Petar Petrov, Antoni Donchev and Boyan Vodenicharov.

During the co-called “communist revival process” in 1980s in Bulgaria, Yildiz was forced to change her name. Between 1985 and 1990 she made her musical performances as Susanna Erova. Under this name she performed with music formation "Jazz Line" and "Acoustic Version" for one season and she was a soloist with Theodosi Spasov in a group “White, green, red”.

The real challenge for her was the participation in festivals in Innsbruck (Austria), Muluz (France) and Varna, where Yildiz had voice solo programmes for 90 minutes without any musical accompaniment.

On other accessions her voice can be heard as accompaniment of Neshka Robeva’s "golden girls" show "Two worlds". Yildiz was involved in music for films “Akatamus”, “Mera spored Mera” and in many cartoons and documentaries.

Yildiz Ibrahimova does not limit their musical interests and searches in the field of jazz music. She take part in concerts of experimental music for the studio, perform pieces by John Cage, entered the territory of modern art music, Russian Gypsy romances mixed with classical, Balkan and Turkish folk music with jazz, children's songs from regions of Balkans and other parts of Europe. Her vocal range is about four octaves and she likes to play with her voice simulating various instruments from trumpet to violoncello. The great singer Yildiz was nominated and won a Turkish magazine prize for Jazz vocalist of the year.

Yildiz Ibrahimova is professor of jazz singing at METU (Middle East Technical University) in the Department of Music and Fine Arts and Music Faculty of Baskent University in Ankara, capital of Turkey.

In 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Yildiz was a special ambassador to the UN, with concert in which Bulgaria and Turkey presented the World Summit on Environment and Social Development.

Yildiz Ibrahimova has participated in tours in over 40 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa, including the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Japan, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Turkey, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia Russia, Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Moldova, Armenia, Ukraine, Algeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Cyprus, Israel and others.

© Wikipedia

I am very excited by the fact that this recording of The Birth of Flowers, recorded by Dame Clara Butt and her three sisters, is now available on YouTube.

Dame Clara Butt was a true Dramatic Contralto, with a wide range, and a luscious dark tone. Her recorded range is from E3 to Ab5, but various reports make it far wider. She regularly performed Schubert's Der Tod und das Mädchen, ending on the low D3. Sir Adrian Boult told Michael Scott that he heard her vocalizing "between four B flats."

In an article in The Mercury,  "her great range...being from lower C in the bass clef to A above the treble clef." While there are other articles which describe the full extent of her range as F2 (Sarastro's lowest note) to C6!

In Liza Lehmann's The Birth of Flowers, Clara holds a sustained C3, truly the lowest note of hers on any recording found so far.

The C3 starts at 3:16. Enjoy!

Dramatic Contralto Gwendolyn Brown has been selected as a finalist in both the Opera and Art Song divisions of The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts.

The winners in both the Opera and Art Song divisions will be announced later in the month.

Congratulations to Gwen on this fantastic news!