Simona Severini is a Milan-born jazz vocalist and guitarist who studied classical guitar for ten years before training in jazz singing under Tiziana Ghiglioni. She recorded her debut album, La Belle Vie (2011, My Favorite Records), a tribute to French composer Gabriel Fauré built around French songs and American standards, with pianist Antonio Zambrini, bassist Alex Orciari and drummer Antonio Fusco, all Discogs-credited.

Her defining collaboration began in 2012, when she started working with pianist Enrico Pieranunzi. That partnership produced the co-billed album My Songbook (2016, Via Veneto Jazz), eleven of Pieranunzi's own compositions arranged for formations from duo to sextet, with Severini's voice carrying the melodies. Discogs credits the session's other musicians as saxophonist Rosario Giuliani, bassist Luca Bulgarelli, drummer Nicola Angelucci and trumpeter Francesco Lento on two tracks. The two have continued to record together since: she sings on Pieranunzi's Time's Passage (2020, Abeat Records, billed to the Enrico Pieranunzi Jazz Ensemble), alongside Bulgarelli, French drummer André Ceccarelli and vibraphonist Andrea Dulbecco, and she is a featured vocalist on Fauréver - A Tribute to Gabriel Fauré (2024, Bonsaï Music), a second Fauré-themed project credited to Pieranunzi, Ceccarelli and French bassist Diego Imbert, where she shares featured billing with clarinetist Gabriele Mirabassi.

Alongside the Pieranunzi partnership, Severini has built a parallel career as a session and duo vocalist across the Italian jazz scene. She is the featured voice on pianist Alessandro Galati's vocal duo album Lawns (2011, Jazzmud) and on his Wheeler Variations (2017, Somethin' Cool), a tribute to trumpeter Kenny Wheeler recorded with bassist Ares Tavolazzi, drummer Enzo Zirilli, and saxophonists Stefano Cantini and Stan Sulzmann. She also guests on violinist Daniele Richiedei and bassist Giulio Corini's Duo Imperfetto (2022), singing and playing guitar on the track "Oh, Mio Babbino Caro." In 2017, Severini, Richiedei and Corini formed their own trio, FEDRA, built around the idea of a threshold between jazz and early music, with a repertoire that press coverage describes as spanning from Monteverdi to more recent songwriters; the group's recordings are not currently listed on Discogs.

Severini's biography and Italian press coverage also credit her with performances alongside pianist-composer Giorgio Gaslini, though no Discogs-documented recording between them has been found. Her own discography includes two shorter releases outside the Pieranunzi and Galati connections: Futura/il Coyote (2016), two Lucio Dalla interpretations recorded in Dalla's own Bologna studio, and Ipotesi (2020), her first solo EP. In 2022 she released the single "Non Faccio Niente" through Virgin Records/Universal, a pop and R&B-influenced track co-written with producer Luca Mattioni that marks a clear departure from her jazz work, and she has also written songs with cantautore Pacifico and taken part in Sanremo Giovani as a singer-songwriter. Her most recent release, Dream Scenario (2025, Parco Della Musica Records), returns her to the jazz duo format, pairing her voice and guitar with the double bass of Jacopo Ferrazza across original songs and jazz reinterpretations.

Severini has performed at Umbria Jazz, Paris Jazz Vocal, the London Jazz Festival, Berlin's XJazz!, Blue Note Milano, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome and Teatro Grande in Brescia. She has also worked as a performer in theater, debuting at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in 2017 as Miranda in a concert-performance based on Shakespeare's The Tempest, and later appearing in Roberto Andò's "In Attesa di Giudizio" at the Maschio Angioino for the Napoli Teatro Festival. In 2019 she sang at the Quirinale before President Sergio Mattarella, who named her a Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana. She teaches at Fondazione Milano, the city's civic school of music.

Severini's core identity is as a jazz vocalist working inside a specific, well-documented corner of the Italian scene: the circle of musicians around pianist Enrico Pieranunzi, extended through Alessandro Galati's vocal-duo records and her own FEDRA trio. Both the Pieranunzi and Galati collaborations place her voice in a chamber-jazz setting, often duo or small-group, built on original compositions and standards rather than big-band or large-ensemble writing, which is reflected in her Vocal Jazz and Chamber Jazz tagging here. FEDRA extends that chamber instinct further, treating jazz and pre-20th-century European music as part of a single continuous repertoire rather than separate traditions.

Alongside that jazz identity, Severini has also worked as a singer-songwriter in more mainstream Italian pop terms, including her 2022 Virgin Records single "Non Faccio Niente" (described in press coverage as blending pop songwriting with soul and R&B elements), songwriting with cantautore Pacifico, and an appearance in the Sanremo Giovani competition. That side of her career runs in parallel to, rather than inside, her jazz work, and the bulk of her discography, her sustained decade-plus partnership with a major jazz pianist, and her listings on All About Jazz and AllMusic keep her jazz identity primary.