About Alessandro & Hanna
What Happens When an Italian Tenor Ties the Knot With a Jazz Chanteuse?
Jazz and Classic Go “Pop”!
Alessandro and Hanna Rinella are a German-Italian vocal duo who love to combine pop, classical music, folk, and jazz to dazzle audiences with a fresh “mash-up” style all their own.
Our Story
Everything began when Alessandro and Hannah met and fell in love. He came from the opera world and had made his mark singing demanding lead roles in famous works like Tosca and Carmen on international stages. She, by contrast, was a contemporary jazz aficionado whose vocal virtuosity had taken her to festivals all over the world. After getting married in Rome, Alessandro’s hometown, the two decided to bring their special chemistry as a couple onto the stage as well – even if this meant putting their promising solo careers on hold. And so the Italian lyric tenor and the German jazz singer debuted on stage together in 2015 as The Kouple: Jazz and Opera in Love. The show toured all over Germany and was even booked for several engagements in Japan. The magic of these live performances was captured on the duo’s first CD, The Kouple - Live (SoulFood Records – Vocepura). Another tour called Seasons of Love soon followed. They have since appeared several times as The Kouple on the main German TV channels RBB, ARD TV, SAT 1, and PRO7, while collaborating with the renowned Babelsberg Film Orchestra and the Warner Korea recording label.
Most recently, Alessandro and Hannah have been busy supporting charitable causes on social media. They recorded a cover version of the song “Angel” by Sarah Maclean, for example, to support the fundraising efforts of Banco Alimentare Italiano, a food bank that assists people who have fallen on hard times due to the Corona pandemic. To support Casa di Kim, an Italian support center for sick children and the Hospital do GRAACC, a Brazilian pediatric cancer hospital, they held a live-streaming fundraising concert and recorded a cover of Over the Rainbow together with the FAME’S ORCHESTRA based in Skopje, Macedonia.
In 2020, Alessandro and Hanna appeared as a contestant on the TV talent show THE VOICE OF GERMANY.
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Alessandro Rinella is a gifted lyric tenor from Rome who learned his craft as a graduate of the Gian Battista Martini Conservatory in Bologna. Parallel to his bel canto studies, he completed training programs in acting and dance at the Bernstein School of Musical Theatre and at the Guildford Acting School in London. He has sung many of the signature roles in the Romantic opera repertoire – including Don José in Bizet’s Carmen, Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata and Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca – at various theaters in Italy, Germany and other European countries. In 2018, he recorded Donizetti’s famous aria Una Furtiva Lagrima for the soundtrack of Drug King, an action film produced by Warner Bros. Korea. In a multifaceted concert career spanning over twenty years, Alessandro has performed as a guest soloist with orchestras like the Münchner Symphoniker, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie, the Nagoya National Orchestra, the Strauss Orchestra Hannover and the Prague Symphonic Orchestra, to name but a few. He garnered international attention with L’Assenza, a crossover duet with Chloe Agnew, a member of the well-known Irish vocal group Celtic Woman. Also seen worldwide was the rousing rendition of Eye of the Tiger with which he introduced the comeback fight of WBO boxing champion Arthur Abraham at Berlin’s O2 Arena during a live TV transmission on Germany’s Channel One (ARD). In April 2014, he released his first crossover album on the Sony Music label. Produced in the US and Germany by a team that had worked with Sarah Brightman, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Andrea Bocelli, the album included an original overture composed by Andrea Morricone. In 2020, Alessandro Rinella appeared as a contestant on the TV talent show THE VOICE OF GERMANY.
Hanna Jursch began performing on stage as a child, mainly in radio and TV broadcasts of important events and celebrations organized by the German Evangelical Church. In the process, she sang for luminaries like the Dalai Lama, Gerhard Schröder and the German President Richard von Weizsäcker. She completed her training in jazz singing with top marks under Romy Camerun at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, and also studied with Victoria Newton and Norma Winstone in London.
As a soloist in various jazz and pop ensembles, she has appeared at many festivals in Germany and abroad, including the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Costa Rica Jazz Festival and Jazz Peru Internacional. She has won awards at national and international competitions, including Winning Jazz (1995 and 2003) and JazziN (2006). She also won first prize at the Concurso Internacional de Interpretes de Jazz held in Granada, Spain in 2006. Hanna Jursch is particularly active in the international “free jazz” scene, which has taken her on tour to America, Peru, Costa Rica, Poland, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Serbia, Macedonia and Switzerland. She has been teaching singing at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media since 2006.
Some of Our Collaborations
