Anaïs Tecla Drago was born in Biella, in Italy's Piedmont region, in 1993, and started on violin at age three under Lee Robert Mosca at the Suzuki Talent Center in Turin, continuing from 2007 under Liana Mosca. She earned her classical violin diploma with full marks in 2013 from the "A. Steffani" Conservatory in Castelfranco Veneto, the same year she began formal jazz study, first at London's Guildhall School and then at the Umbria Jazz clinics (2014). In 2017 she completed a jazz composition and arrangement degree with highest honors under bassist Enrico Fazio, winning the Ghislieri Prize for her thesis; since 2020 she has continued studying improvised music with bassist Daniele Roccato, cellist/composer Paolo Damiani, conductor Tonino Battista and percussionist Michele Rabbia.

Her breakthrough recognitions came in a tight three-year run: revelation of the Conad Jazz Contest at Umbria Jazz (2019), the Amadeus Factory first prize in the jazz category (2018), the Taste of Jazz/Nuovo Imaie prize (2021), and then, in January 2022, Top Jazz's "new proposals" award, the Italian jazz-critics' referendum run by Musica Jazz magazine - the same year she also won the Isio Saba competition and a SIAE prize. DownBeat magazine has named her a violin-category Rising Star every year since 2023. The biggest prize came in Kraków in 2024: first place at the Seifert Competition, the biennial international contest for jazz string players held in memory of violinist Zbigniew Seifert, judged that year by cellists Anja Lechner and Ernst Reijseger and composer Michal Urbaniak, and worth 40,000 zloty.

Her Discogs-verified catalog (artist ID 6370476, 17 credits) opens with Anaïs Drago & The Jellyfish (Another Music Records, 2018), a septet's worth of original compositions inspired by Frank Zappa, and continues through Solitudo (CAM Jazz, 2021), a solo record for violin, electronics and voice built during the pandemic. Shake Your Duty (Parco della Musica Records, 2024) is a trio with bassist Valentina Ciardelli and countertenor Riccardo Angelo Strano, again centered on Zappa alongside Baroque and Classical repertoire and originals; ReLeVé Live (Habitable Records, 2025) documents her trio with clarinetist Federico Calcagno and drummer/percussionist Max Trabucco, recorded live at Münster Jazz Festival. Her most recent leader release, ¡Gracia! (Artesuono, 2026), is a trio with guitarist Luca Falomi and accordionist Fausto Beccalossi built around the poetry of Federico García Lorca, released 28 May 2026 and still current at the time of this profile.

As a sideman, Drago's Discogs-confirmed credits run from Enrico Fazio Critical Mass's Wabi Sabi (2019, Leo Records, on violin, electric violin and mandolin) through Nugara Trio's Point of Convergency (2023, Gleam Records) and Pericopes+1's Good Morning World! (2024, Losen Records), to a genuine classical-crossover credit: violin on Œuvres Pour Instruments Et Orgue (2024, Cascavelle), a program of organ-and-instrument works by Nadia Boulanger, René Gerber and Bernard Schulé. On the popular-music side, she was violinist in singer Ultimo's touring and recording band from 2019 to 2023, including stadium dates at Circo Massimo (Rome) and San Siro (Milan) and a Rai3 "Che tempo che fa" appearance - real, well-documented work, but session and touring work rather than a jazz credit.

A specific, independently documented connection: on 3 September 2022, Drago performed a duo set with trumpeter Enrico Rava on the main stage in L'Aquila's Piazza Duomo, as part of "Jazz Italiano per le Terre del Sisma," the earthquake-relief benefit festival - a photographed, dated public performance, not a studio recording, but real all the same.

Beyond her own bands, she tours in the Neri Marcorè/Giorgio Gallione theatre production "La Buona Novella" (2023-2025), joined actress Virginia Raffaele's ensemble for "Bancàl" (2026, directed by Federico Tiezzi), and in 2026 taught violin and ensemble music at the Nuoro Jazz summer seminars. She endorses Yamaha Music Europe (Italy) and the Swiss amplification brand Schertler.

Drago's own description of her work - moving between "free improvisation, electroacoustic music, jazz, pop" - holds up against the catalog. Solitudo's solo violin-plus-electronics writing and her ongoing improvised-music study with Paolo Damiani, Daniele Roccato and Michele Rabbia sit in a European free-improvisation lineage; her working trios (ReLeVé with clarinet and drums, then the guitar-and-accordion Lorca project ¡Gracia!) favor small, timbrally varied, chamber-like groupings over a conventional rhythm section, a quality more than one reviewer of ¡Gracia! has specifically called "chamber music" in scale. Running alongside that is a recurring, self-chosen touchstone in Frank Zappa, the explicit subject of both her debut with The Jellyfish (2018) and Shake Your Duty (2024), which she built by mixing Zappa repertoire with Baroque and Classical pieces and originals. Her one purely classical credit, on a 2024 Cascavelle recording of chamber works by Nadia Boulanger, René Gerber and Bernard Schulé, and her multi-year run as touring violinist for pop singer Ultimo, are both real but secondary threads next to a performing and awards record - Top Jazz, the Seifert Competition, DownBeat's violin Rising Star poll, leader dates on CAM Jazz and Parco della Musica Records - that is unambiguously jazz-identified.