Born in Jakarta I started to sing in the Primary School's choir as a lead singer at the age of 13. After listening to Sarah Vaughn's Misty for the first time, I fell in love with Jazz. The other great female singers who had influenced my singing were Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, Randy Crawford, Betty Carter, Ernestine Anderson, Aretha Franklin & Chaka Khan.
In 1979 I began my professional singing career when I met two wellknown Jazz guitarists from Indonesia Yopie Item and Ireng Maulana who discovered my singing talent and performed with them in several Jazz Clubs and International Hotels in Jakarta.
In 1983 I moved to the Paradise Island Bali and continued singing with the local musicians there. I had won a price in a singing competition hosted by Radio & Television Bali in 1984.
My International singing career began in 1987 when I went to Perth, Australia and performed together with Dirk Plummer Big Band.
In 1989 I went to Holland and studied Jazz at the Hilversum Conservatorium and tought by Edwin Rutten, Deborah Brown & Greetje Kaufeld. I won the "Golden Tulip Award" in Leiden.
During my stay in Holland I joined the "North Sea Jazz Festival" together with Edwin Rutten Quartet in DenHaag. Performances all over Holland followed with my own Band "State of mind" and "Picture This" as well as other professional musicians like Bernard Berkhout & The Swingmates, Bob Richter, Karel Boele, Martjin Van Iterson and Tony Eyck.
After 6 years of succesfully performing in the Netherlands I decided it was time to move back to Bali and reunite with my family and local musicians there. Together with my brother Yuri Mahatma who plays guitar I first formed a band called "Easy Money". Out of further musical development, "Jiwa Band" & "Kayane Band" were born & playing Jazz, Latin Jazz, R&B and Funk in some of the most distinguished places in Bali.
In 2002 I took another step to further develop my musical carreer by moving to Germany and live in Dortmund. There I joined the "Glen Bushman Jazz Akadamie" Big Band led by Uwe Plath and was later on invited to sing at the "Old Gold Jazz Festival" in Novi Sad and other special occasions. I then joined the professional Jazz Bands "Darktown Swingtet" and "Woodhouse Jazz Band" with the later I performed at the 2004 Jazz festival in Rimini. Recently I am further working with well known musicians in the Jazz scene like, Gilda Razani and Subvision, Peter Petrel & The Swinging Petrels, Engelbert Wrobels & The Swing Society, Klaus Osterloh, Reiner Oeding from The Pils Pickers, and some members of the WDR Big Band like John Marshall & John Goldsby, in several events and places all over Germany.
