Wed Apr 16
New York City-based Latvian vocalist and composer, and one of the Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition finalists Arta Jekabsone will lighten up the room with her original music, Latvian Folk- songs and arranged music in honor of the “ First Lady of Song" Ella Fitzgerald.
A New York City-based Latvian vocalist and composer Arta Jekabsone has won the prestigious Montreux Shure Jazz Voice Competition and has finished in the top three in multiple internationally renowned competitions, including 2019 Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition. In 2021 she added 3rd prize at the Annual Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Voice Competition to her long list of achievements. Arta Jekabsone is recognized for her velvety tone and engages listeners with an emotional and honest, adventurous, and joyful expression of music. Her compositions are infused with the folk melodies of her homeland, Latvia. The music on her album, “Light” and “Reflections”, brims with intimacy, warmth, and crystal-clear focus. A vocal artist of the highest order, Arta regularly presents new works at The Jazz Gallery. In fact, she was awarded the Jazz Gallery Residency Commission Grant 2021. In 2023, Jekabsone received the highest form of state recognition in the field of music, the Latvian Music Award “New Artist of the Year 2022”. ASCAP Foundation recently recognized her with an honorable mention in the 2024 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards and in May 2024 she concluded her artist residency at The Church in Sag Harbor. Arta Jekabsone has performed internationally, presenting her music in International Music Festivals to name a few, Montreux Jazz Festival 2017, Enjoy Jazz Festival 2018, Mandava Jazz Festival 2022, Song and Dance Festival in Canada 2024. Currently, Jekabsone is working on two albums, her solo Latvian-Folk-jazz music album “Dziesmu Kamoliš” and “Impressions of an Era” featuring Latvian Radio Bigband and Toms Rudzinskis, which will be released in the Fall 2025.