our story

BonaHop is a versatile Malaysian duo that plays various types of genres but focuses on Swing Jazz music. The duo consists of Grace Leong, a much sought after female jazz keyboardist in town cum music lecturer and Yvonne Chong, a vocalist and voice over talent.

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These two were brought together at a gig playing pop, R’n’B, and top 40s music in a tiny bar somewhere in KL while they made ends meet. They both soon discovered their shared interest in Swing Jazz music (particularly New Orleans Style) and decided to secretly form a band together in hopes of improving and mastering their craft in Jazz. They wished to live their dream of performing on a foreign planet where glorious food was served and people partied like it was the 1940’s, all to the good ol’ tunes of Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and other greats.

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As they continue to work on this passion project, their wish came true when they first debuted as BonaHop at Publika Jazz Fest 2017 as one of the main acts. The show was a big hit and caught the eye of a local Lindy Hop community called KL Swing, a swing dancing community that dances to Swing Jazz music! Since BonaHop’s debut, they were invited to perform as a full band for Lindy Hop Swing dance events such as KL Swing‘s Tropic Thunder Swing Fest 2017 (an international dance camp held in Cyberjaya), KLSwing’s 10th Year Anniversary: Atomic Cocktail dance event 2018, Swing2KL’s Anthony & Irina Dance Weekend Workshop March 2019 (another notable international dance workshop & social event for dancers) and LindyKL’s Big Swingover Year End Party in December 2019.

BonaHop also had the opportunity to collaborate with Big Band Story (a 21 piece big band) in Publika Jazz Fest 2019 last August where they played Swing Jazz tunes in a Big Band format! They also combined forces with The Frankie Sixes (another Malaysian jazz act pushing Swing Jazz), as The BonaSixes, for Lindy Hop Live in April 2019, an event curated by a musician/dancer for Swing dancers. The most recent notable achievement was that BonaHop’s vocalist, Yvonne Chong, got invited to Taipei to perform alongside with Reza Salleh of The Frankie Sixes to collaborate with a Japanese Swing Band called Clap, Stomp, Swinging for an international Lindy Hop event called BubblePop 2019, organised by a Taiwanese Lindy Hop Scene called Big Apple Swing.

BonaHop have also been seen performing in various venues, events, themed-shows and weddings in Klang Valley as a duo or with their full band lineup over the past few years. Grace’s immaculate piano work and Yvonne’s captivating vocals brings to the audience their classic tunes of the Jazz era as well as fun renditions of chart topping hits of the 21st century.