Eleonora Kouneni

In her PizzaExpress Live debut, jazz singer and songwriter Eleonora Kouneni brings her band of longstanding collaborators to the Pheasantry for the launch of her new EP This Eager Heart — a story of love, loss and longing told through four timeless standards. Following the crossover success of her independently released debut EP If You Just…, this new collaborative project with pianist Chris Lee brings Eleonora’s storytelling instinct and contemporary vocal palette to her first recorded take on the Great American Songbook. The programme will also include original songs from If You Just... and a showcase of new arrangements scheduled for release later in 2026, offering audiences a blend of familiar repertoire, fresh interpretations and the evolving sound of a partnership rooted in shared musical curiosity. Eleonora Kouneni is a Greek-born/London-based jazz vocalist and songwriter known for a vocal approach that blends jazz phrasing with Mediterranean warmth, emotional clarity and a storyteller’s instinct. Eleonora began her career in Athens in her late teens opening for some of Greece’s most celebrated vocalists at major festivals before relocating to London and establishing herself in the city’s jazz scene. Her independently released debut EP introduced her songwriting to international audiences, with its lead single reaching over 2.5 million streams across 170 countries and drawing over 36,000 monthly listeners. This global reach helped pave the way for several London shows, including sold out shows at the Green Note Basement, a showcase in New York City, and a recent soldout headline show at the Monks Jazz Club in Austin, TX, with some of the best musicians in town, which was also livestreamed internationally. Chris Lee is a London-based composer/arranger/pianist who has performed and recorded with some of the leading musicians on the London jazz and Brazilian music scenes. Notable albums include Second Take, with singer Jenny Howe, which feature his arrangements of iconic pop/rock standards (“to recast well-known tunes in a new idiom is difficult enough, but to come up with such convincing results takes talent and imagination”; Dave Gelly, The Observer), and A Troubled Man, with singer Mark Jennett, a song-cycle portraying the fictional detective Kurt Wallander in Swedish author Henning Mankell’s Nordic noir crime novels ("unusual and attractive ... poised and flowing ... lean and lyrical"; Michael Tucker, Jazz Journal). This marks their first recording venture together, and both are excited to share this new chapter with both loyal listeners and new audiences alike.