BIOGRAPHY

My name is Kathi and I am the singer, composer, arranger and founder of the band SANUYÉ. I write indie jazz songs with neo-soul influences and my music is reminiscent of a young Amy Winehouse.

We live in a world that is spinning faster and faster, in which people are rushing around breathlessly and which threatens to falter due to the rise of political fanaticism, sexism and racism as well as the climate crisis. I want to counter the feelings of being lost, helpless and powerless that this triggers with my music:
At our concerts, we create a place to pause and invite people to feel, to find themselves in the stories told, to be inspired and to be with themselves for a moment.

I sat at the piano for the first time at the age of nine and shortly afterwards I wrote my first song: it was a winter afternoon, it was snowing lightly outside, I was playing to myself and writing down my thoughts in my notebook. The lyrics, the melody and the chords just flowed out of my fingers and I was completely lost in my world – by the time the song was finished, the snow was ankle-deep outside and it was late in the evening. I also started taking singing lessons during this time and after the first lesson I knew with absolute certainty that I wanted to be a singer.

The first two years of my studies didn’t go as I had imagined. The musical focus was mainly on traditional jazz and I found it difficult to continue writing my own songs because I felt constricted by my preoccupation with just one musical genre and suddenly it was no longer clear to me exactly where my musical journey should take me and how I wanted to express myself.
I needed a change, decided to take some time away and moved to Budapest for a semester. Detached from my usual environment, I simply let myself wander during this time and a knot was untied: Not only did I find new musical inspiration, but also close friendships, enriching perspectives and a new sense of freedom.

Back at home, I continued to work on the ideas that emerged in Budapest and gradually more and more poems and songs developed from them. At that time, I was listening a lot to Amy Winehouse’s first album ‘Frank’ and was inspired by her and the band’s sound. I realised that I wanted to have a large band and started arranging my songs with this idea of a big sound for vocals, horn section and rhythm section. Shortly afterwards, I met up with musicians and good friends from my studies to play my music with them for the first time. The band brought my musical vision to life and the feeling was overwhelming – it felt right and good and like something had been sparked within me.

And now the time has finally come:
I’m releasing my first album this year and I’m looking forward to sharing my stories with people together with my band. A quote from the song ‘Faded Flowers’ couldn’t be more suitable: ‘An archive full of stories that are worth being told’ – SANUYÉ’s debut album ‘We All Become Stories’ will be released in late summer 2025.