Izaline Calister: the voice that turns Curaçao’s drum into universal jazz

On November 18, 2009, Izaline Calister was in Eindhoven for the Edison Award ceremony. The album Speransa had just received the most prestigious musical distinction of the Netherlands. Ten hours later, in the hospital, she gave birth to her daughter¹. This coincidence sums up Izaline Calister: an accomplished artist, rooted in her island, who continues to shine the music of Curaçao on stages around the world.

In brief

Key dates

Origins and trajectory

Izaline Calister grew up in Curaçao, a small island in the Caribbean Sea. From childhood, she sang in the choir Perlitas of composer Rudy Plaate². At 18, she left Curaçao for Groningen in the Netherlands. After three years of commercial studies, she devoted herself entirely to music and joined the Prince Claus Conservatory. She spent five years there studying light musical singing.

At the conservatory, she discovered jazz. The keyboardist Jasper van ’t Hof called her to join his ensemble Pili Pili. Izaline went on an international tour and recorded two albums. In 1998, she created the Izaline Calister Band, composed of musicians from Curaçao who accompanied her for more than twenty years³.

In 2000, she released Soño di un muhé (“The Dream of a Woman”), her first album. The record blends Caribbean traditions and jazz, reaching number 1 on the local chart — an achievement for a jazz album on the island⁴. Mariposa (2002) and Krioyo (2004) confirmed her trajectory. Krioyo revealed her on the international stage: Curaçao rhythms — benta, tumba, soukous — in rich jazz arrangements.

The turning point was Speransa (“Hope”), released on May 1, 2009. Izaline assumed her role as songwriter by writing almost all the lyrics. Mi Pais became, in the eyes of many Curaçaoans, an alternative national anthem. The Edison Award crowned this journey in October 2009, in the Jazz and World Music category. The year was rich: she performed at the UN in New York, accompanied by Nile Rodgers for the Day of Victims of Slavery, sang Vlemayo Cositu, an ancestral song on motherhood⁵. She then went on tour in Mali for workshops with the kora master Toumani Diabaté, and later to Israel in jazz clubs.

Theater, history, and commitment

Since the 2010s, Izaline Calister has expanded her field of action by blending music, theater, and cultural commitment. With director Thijs Borsten, she created Eiland van mijn vader (“The Island of My Father”) and Almacita di Desolato, a play inspired by a local tale. August 17 marks each year the commemoration of the slave revolt of 1795 led by Tula. Izaline has organized and produced the annual concert at ITA Amsterdam since 2018, bringing together her expanded ensemble⁶. In 2023, she opened the exhibition on slavery at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, in the presence of the King of the Netherlands.

As a songwriter, she writes for others in Papiamentu, Dutch, English, and Spanish. She sits as a juror at the Concertgebouw Youth Competition and the Willem Wilmink Prize. At ArtEZ Conservatory and ATKA, she passes on her knowledge. In 2025, she celebrated twenty-five years of career with a series of concerts across Europe and the Caribbean⁷.

Legacy

Izaline Calister has placed Curaçao music on the global map of jazz and world music. Her warm voice, arranging sensibility, and historical sensitivity give each performance a rare density. Today, in addition to her stage work, she teaches at ArtEZ and ATKA, passing on the knowledge and craft that make her a unique ambassador of Papiamentu and Caribbean rhythms⁸.

Major works

Sources and references