Janie Renée’s passion for jazz and poetry goes back a long way. As a child, she wrote poems that quickly became songs, while she learned to master piano and guitar. She entered a local radio station’s singer-songwriter competition at the age of 11 and became a semi-finalist.

In 1986, she became the first winner in the singer-songwriter category when she entered the Ontario POP contest, sponsored by CBC-Ottawa. In the years that followed, Janie won numerous awards and also performed at festivals. She finally chooses to take a break in her career to devote herself to her family.

Her return in 2012 with the album “Les Valises”, soon leads her to envisage new avenues. In June 2013, she imagined and set up an Eco-Show, which became an industry reference for best practice according to the Conseil Québécois des Événements Éco-responsables.

Moreover, thanks to radio promotion efforts in Europe, the album Les Valises soon found a new audience and several tracks were played on 70 international radio stations (in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Morocco and even Chile) as well as on the French-speaking Caribbean network. During her performance at Carimex Martinique in October 2014 (the world’s leading Caribbean music market), Janie Renée seduced and was rescheduled for an additional performance on the main stage. She is named official ambassador of Carimex 2014-2015 and is thus brought to perform again throughout the Caribbean the following year.

In 2015, inspired by these travels and encounters, she immersed herself for a month in the universe of two master percussionists during a polyrhythmic residency in Martinique. Her journey had her travelling through Spain (Oct. 2014), France for a radio promotion tour (Nov. 2014) and also in Austria in the fall of 2015.  She launches her second album “Eden is a Bazaar” and tours Canada and Belgium in 2016 , 2017, 2018. She describes her style as “Hybrid Jazz” because it includes soul, blues, jazz and lots of Latin rhythms superimposed on « grande chanson ». Her lyrics can adapt to the most complex of syncopations.  Often compared to Claude Nougaro, Véronique Sanson, Éliane Elias, Henri Salvador, or even Diane Tell… her art defies conventional labels.

In 2017, she signed the lyrics of several songs figuring on other artist’s albums: Julie Kim, Wolanyo, France Maisonneuve . She is very involved in writing workshops for youth across Ontario and supporting young emerging artists from Francophone Ontario (Kyris, Véronik Fournier) and for the past few years, the lyrics of her writing groups have been recorded (as songs) for the Jamais Trop Tôt program.

At the end of 2017, during a roadtrip across Ontario, Janie Renée decided to listen to about a hundred Franco-Ontarian albums; the albums of the pioneers of the franco-ontarian music.  She chose to focus on the period from the late sixties to the early 2000s.  She took 12 songs from various authors, wrote jazz arrangements for them and made it into her 3rd album «#jesuisUFO », to salute and celebrate her roots.  CANO, Garolou, Paul Demers, Robert Paquette and many little jewels of authors like Michel Dallaire, Patrice Desbiens and Brigitte Haentjens, take life with new jazz versions.  In fact, her choice of a rather unusual title for this album – #jesuisUFO, was a way to salute her Franco-Ontarian background, and to add a little smirk to the fact that jazz is not a common formula in French Ontario. The album #jesuisUFO was officially released in October 2019 and can be found on over 70 digital platforms worldwide. In May 2019, Janie Renée received the first ever Gold Trille for Best Jazz Artist.  In 2015 she had garnered a nomination for Best Singer-Songwriter and in 2013, a nomination for Best Female Artist and in 2021 in the Best Jazz Artist category.  The self-titled show #jesuisUFO will have been played only one time in a showcase in early 2020, just before the start of the Covid pandemic.

Resilient and determined, Janie Renée went back to work on the brazilian album project she started during an artistic residency in Brazil.  Little by little, the album INESPERADO took shape.  Part of the album was recorded in Rio de Janeiro, and the other in Canada, with collaborations with Canadian-Brazilian artists such as Paulo Ramos and Rodrigo Simoes. The final album features performances by Jayme Vignoli, Leandro Braga, Pedro Aune, Glauber Seixas, Josimar Carneiro, Oscar Bolao, Rui Alvim, Marcilio Lopez, Luiz Augusto, Marcelo Cebukin, Michel Tasky, Sacha Daoud, Paulo Ramos, Rodrigo Simoes, Magella Cormier, Jean-Francois Martel, Julian Gutierrez and Matthew Larkin.

INESPERADO is a particularly luminous album, with traditional, rich and careful orchestrations.  It will be presented to the international public in February 2022 and to the Canadian public in March 2022.