Patricia Bahia

Patricia Bahia was born in St. Louis, Missouri to parents Maarten and Farah Nieuwenhuizen. Her father, a retired psychiatrist, is Dutch, and her mother, a retired art educator, is Persian.

As a child, Bahia sang in choirs, took dance, piano, and voice lessons, and played the clarinet. Her first public performance was a dance recital at age six on the paddle boat, the SS Admiral (1907), on the Mississippi river in St. Louis, Missouri.

She attended the Plan II Honors Program at The University of Texas at Austin, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Her thesis was on the Women's Suffrage Movement[13] for which she traveled to locate diaries and letters from Suffragettes. She attended the University of California, Hastings College of the Law[14] in San Francisco. It was in law school that Bahia began singing again.

She worked for a number of years as an attorney, moonlighting as a jazz singer with a residency at Café Claude in San Francisco.[15]

Bahia is a founding member of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, with which she toured internationally and sang backing vocals on Linda Ronstadt's, Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind album.[16] She performed with the Choir until 2006.[17]

In 2003, Bahia was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and decided to begin writing songs.[18][19] She left her legal career and began studying the craft of songwriting. She started playing the piano again, learned to play the guitar, and began performing as a solo singer-songwriter.[20] In 2010 she released an EP titled, Long Road Home[21] and in 2015 she released a full-length album, Save Your Heart[22] which received favorable reviews.[23][24][25]

In 2020, Bahia's songs Every Heart One Love and It’s All Good, were finalists in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.[26]

Bahia coaches clients on vocal technique, performance, and songwriting. Previously, she taught voice at the University of Southern California (USC) and voice and music business at the California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). [27][28]

Bahia holds an MM (Master of Music) degree in Commercial Music from the California State University, Los Angeles.[29]

In 2020 Bahia won a total of three Peace Song Awards including the grand prize award.[31] In 2020 Bahia won two Positive Music Awards also known as "Posi" awards.[32]

Bahia with Award at The Positive Music Festival, 2018