Vanessa Pentogalou was born in Athens (Greece) on June 26, 1977. She started her music studies, in the “National Conservatory of Athens”, taking courses of Classical Piano, Classical Theory, Classical Harmony and History of Music for five years. She also took Lessons on Classical Singing for three years.

In 1998 she started studying Jazz Music in “Athenaeum Conservatory”, taking Voice Lessons and Jazz Repertoire with Sofia Noiti, Jazz Improvisation, Jazz Phrasing, Jazz Harmony and Workshops with Sylvios Syrros, Jazz Piano with George Kontrafouris, Dimitris Kalantzis and George Katsanos, History of Jazz with Zack Samuel and Theory of Jazz, Ear-training and Dictée with Tasos Zois.She graduated from the Jazz Department of “Athenaeum Maria Callas Conservatory” in 2004, with an A degree in her Diploma.

She has attended various seminars on Voice Technique such as Voicecraft, Speech Level Singing and has participated in master classes on Jazz Singing and Improvisation, Jazz Phrasing and Vocal Performance with famous Jazz Vocalists, Educators and Composers, such as Sheila Jordan, Sheila Cooper, JD Walter, Deborah Carter and Gretchen Parlato. In the last few years, she has attended seminars on Drama therapy and Music therapy.

In 2005 she started teaching Singing Lessons, Improvisation as well as Theory of Modern Music, Music Scores Reading, Ear-training and Dictée.

She has participated in many concerts of the Musical Workshops of “Swinging Jazz Athenaeum”, and has also performed with several groups in various music scenes in Athens. She is proud to have collaborated with many exceptional musicians of the Greek Jazz Scene.

In September 2014 she formed a jazz band named JAZZ IT UP, with Tolis Metzidakis (electric bass) and Vagelis Moulakakis (drums). A few months later, two members joined the band (Dimitris Faris, piano, keyboards, sax) and Apostolis Kyriakos (guitar). JAZZ IT UP play jazz standards, but also popular rock and pop songs with jazz arrangements.

She likes singing any sort of music that expresses her. She loves to teach and being taught.