Jade Orchid GRACE RICHARDSON & VERNALDERINE FRANCIS Living on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, part of the twin island Federation of St. Kitts (St Christopher) and Nevis, Grace Richardson and Vernalderine 'Nalzie' Francis combined their talents to form the group Jade Orchid in 2006. Grace was born in the Parish of St Andrew, Jamaica and Nalzie in the Parish of St. George, St Kitts. Music had played and important part in both of their lives from an early age. Nalzie spent much of her early years listening to her mother sing at church concerts and she also enjoyed watching her father play drums in various gospel bands. At the age of 8 Nalzie's father began to give her drumming lessons and tips. Despite her natural shyness, at age of 12, she began singing in her church choir and participated in plays. In her later teenage years Nalzie was a member of the local rap group Xbass and it was at this point that she began to experiment with songwriting. She has continued to develop this talent even though she is very much involved in the fields of graphic design and web development. At the age of five Grace began to play the recorder, at age nine, the guitar and soon after, the piano. Over the years she has been a member of music groups both in Jamaica and St Kitts. As a high school student she was a member of her school choir as well as the National Schools Choir under the direction of Geoffrey Shields. This choir was made up of students from different high schools in the Kingston/St Andrew area of Jamaica. Grace was also selected from the National Schools Choir to join the smaller select choir, the Collegiate Choral Ensemble also under the direction of Mr. Shields. It was this select choir that participated in a CBS music special with Harry Belafonte in the late 1970's. Grace continued to involve herself in music when she moved to St. Kitts permanently in 1980, becoming a member of the Liamuiga Folk Singers as a guitarist and eventually its Musical Director. She also gave willingly of her time to create musical works for the Children's Dance Theatre and also for the Catholic Youth Choir of the Co-cathedral in Basseterre. Nalzie has been putting her unique voice to good use, providing background vocals for a number of local artists. These include Zemenfes Kidus, Alamoulou, Gazer and Monarch. She has worked with the Modern Image Band and the KC5 Band accompanying artistes such as Edwin Yearwood, Bomani, Claudette Peters, Christopher Martin and most recently Ziggy Rankin. Their first album 'Pelau' is so named because it contains different genres of music and is representative of their musical tastes. All songs were written and arranged by Grace and Nalzie. The vocals, lead and background were sung by the ladies while Grace put her guitar skills to good use the album that was completed in early 2007. The second album 'Fraco' released in 2011 contains 15 tracks and is much a mix of genres as the first album. In addition to what was done by the ladies for the first album, on the 'Fraco' album they also assisted with the mixing of the music. A third album is already in the works and judging from what has already been produced by Jade Orchid, there is much more ear candy to come.  Listen to Caribbean Man  Listen to My Romeo  Listen to Tell Me  Listen to Wake Up  Listen to Now I See