Samara Joy

Hailing from a family of musicians in the Bronx with roots in gospel, Joy began her journey with jazz at age 17, winning the vocal honors at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition. She went on to study with the great Barry Harris and win the 2019 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.

Joy gets inside each song she sings, breathing nuance and life into standards. Her UMS debut falls on the 100th birthday of Sarah Vaughan, one of the great American jazz singers to whom she is often compared.