Auriol Hays

Her bands, all accomplished jazz musicians in their own right, are all based in Cape Town. Auriol Hays is currently working on her second album with various talented producers and artists such as Lionel Bastos and Mr Mallum and Nathan Ro from Lonehille Estate.

Auriol Hays was born and raised all over the Western Cape, South Africa everywhere from Mitchells Plain to Eerst River. She grew up listening to classical music and whatever her parents liked, be it Jim Reeves or Roger Whitaker.As a child, she was very quiet hiding beneath what would later be revealed as an extraordinarily talented shell. As a teenager, she spread her small vocal wings a little, albeit to an audience of one – herself! And despite coming from a musical family where mum played piano and her brothers played guitar, Auriol kept her vocal talent and songwriting very much disguised.

It would be four whole years of marriage before Auriol even admitted to her husband that she had singing talent.

A chance meeting with songwriter / producer extraordinaire, Andre Scheepers, brought, was in now called, the Auriol Hays Project into fruition. Auriol and Andre met each other by accident through a girl called Sue, on a cold winter’s night in a small farm house next to a poultry processing plant in Muldersdrift, Johannesburg. Auriol needed a keyboard player. Andre needed a new talent to mould. The result would be a top ten hit on 5fm’s Top Forty called Take It Slow.

Aside from singing at numerous corporate and private venues, Auriol Hays has since performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, opened with the Gauteng Big Band for the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz, sang at the Zoo Lake music festival, wowed crowds at the 94.7 Christmas Wish Concert and is set to perform at the Grahamstown Festival this year.