Arta Jekabsone

Latvian Vocalist, Composer & Arranger | Based in New York City

Latvian-born vocalist, composer and arranger Arta Jēkabsone infuses her jazz with Baltic soul and an unshakable sense of storytelling. Seamlessly blending Latvian folk melodies with contemporary jazz expression, she crafts music that is both intimate and daring. Her voice radiates warmth, clarity, and fearless emotional depth.

Jēkabsone is the winner of the Montreux Shure Jazz Voice Competition and has placed among the top three in several other prestigious international competitions, including the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Voice Competition. Her acclaimed debut album Light brims with intimacy, warmth, and crystal-clear focus.

A recipient of The Jazz Gallery Residency Commission Grant 2021/2022, she regularly premieres original works at The Jazz Gallery in New York City. In 2023, she received Latvia’s highest recognition in music: the Latvian Music Award for New Artist of the Year. In 2024, she earned an honorable mention in the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards (ASCAP Foundation) and completed an artist residency at The Church in Sag Harbor. Most recently, she was awarded a NYFA Fellowship 2025.

Currently, Jēkabsone is working on two albums, her solo Latvian-Alternative folk-jazz music album “Dziesmu Kamoliņš”// Garland of Songs, which was released on October16, 2025, and “Impressions of an Era” featuring Latvian Radio Bigband and Toms Rudzinskis, which will be released in the Spring 2025.

Jēkabsone’s performances invite audiences into a sonic space where heritage, innovation, and emotion converge—elevating jazz with a distinctly Baltic warmth and spirit.

Awards

NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow Grant Recipient (2025)
The Church, Sag Harbour Residency recipient (2024)
2024 Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards honorable mention recipient for bigband composition Kaķpēdiņas (2024)
Emerging Artist of the Year 2022 for The Grand Music Award in Latvia (2023)
3rd prize at Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition (2021)
The Jazz Gallery Residency Commission Grant 2021 recipient
1st prize at Montreux Shure Jazz Voice Competition in Switzerland (2016)
2nd prize at the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Voice competition (2017)
3rd prize at the International Ella Fitzgerald Voice Competition (2019)
Finalist at Big Band Composition Competition for Young Baltic Composers (2020)
Awarded for the Latvian Annual Concert 2019 award on Latvian Radio Klasika 3 (2019)
Nominated for Best Concert Recording and Best Debut in Latvia's Music Award of the Year Zelta Mikrofons with Electric Combo (2015)

Gear

JZ Microphones HH1Dynamic Microphone
Shure KSM8 Dualdyne Dynamic Vocal Microphone
Shure Beta 58A
TC Helicon VoiceLive Touch 2 Vocal Processor
MiMU Gloves (-in progress)

Tags

Arta Jekabsone Voice Composer/arranger New York City Latvia Positive Storytelling

“The Latvian-born artist has crafted a sound niche reflective of her journeys, both physical and emotional. Hope, wanderlust, and self-reflection emerge as raw materials for carefully sculpted compositions; her lyrics brim with intimacy.” — Jazz Speaks, Stephanie Jones

“…she delivered a beautiful array of pieces that gorgeously framed her clear tone, understated phrasing, and a knack for memorable melodies. But more deeply, Arta created a meditation on light, in its natural form certainly, but also in its spiritual and human capacity.” — Hot House Jazz Guide, Seton Hawkins

Arta continues to shine as one of jazz’s most expressive and boundary-pushing voices. — Neon Jazz, Joe Dimino

“In her music, you can hear warmth, gratitude, and compassion, as well as crystal-clear intention and focus. — Jazz Speaks, Noah Fishman

“Arta captivates with her unconventional and distinctive approach to jazz vocals, seamlessly blending diverse musical influences into a luminous interpretation – all while weaving a uniquely Latvian thread into the fabric of jazz.”
— Daiga Markova, Latvian musicologist

“Beyond her vocal artistry, Jēkabsone is a perceptive composer and curator, developing interdisciplinary projects that expand across style, media, and time period.” — Jazz Speaks, Kevin Laskey

“She brings together musical influences from around the world, bonding traditional palettes with modern rhythms and sensibilities, linking the past to the present. She imbibes her audiences with song, filling their hearts and minds with her music, inviting them to carry these tunes with them as they travel through the course of their day.” — Jazz2Love, Susan Frances

“She is a beauty on stage, but in a very natural way, honest and playful – totally into the music; – let’s call her Arta Sunshine Jēkabsone.” — Montreux Jazz Shure Voice Competition diaries, Sabine Kühlich

“Those that hear her cannot forget her immensely positive energy and refined mastery of craft that is truly one of a kind.” — Multi-instrumentalist, gamer, and composer, Jasper Dütz

“Arta Jēkabsone is a voice that will soothe any pain or suffering. She is the guardian and ambassador of light, love, and peace. Yet, she still can bedazzle you with complex, but not overwhelming lines and melodies, and she freely takes command of harmony and rhythm.” — Composer and pianists, Edgars Cīrulis

“Every now and again something truly new comes around. It’s rare, so when that happens, the experience is truly special. Such an experience is awaiting one’s ears when they experience the artistry which is Arta Jekabsone. Her compositions are rooted in her life’s journey, infused with the deep roots of her native country, and most importantly, her performances are filled with the genuine, real, authentic expressions which are at the heart of her improvisations. Her voice communicates powerfully and her compositions and arrangements are equally moving. It was a pleasure to have her at the Jazz Loft and to collaborate with her on stage.” — Thomas J. Manuel, D.M.A.President & Founder, The Jazz Loft, Inc.

There’s a beguiling oddness to hearing the words “I put the blue bin out in my best blue pyjamas” sung by a voice as clear and as pure as cold water drawn from a well in a fairytale village. This air of ethereal otherness hangs throughout the rest of the collection, like Scandinavian mist…Beachfinds is a very special and affecting collaboration. And aptly named, too. It’s like a beautifully polished piece of sea glass held up to the sun. A bit like Dean Wilson himself. Hats off to Erik and Arta for taking Dean’s words and dressing them up in new and different clothes. — The Crow’s Nest, a music column by Russ Litten

A magical production that blends wordless vocal beauty with a neo-classical instrumental glow, “Dedication (for Gabi)” is an engaging new track from New York-based artist Nick Marks. Arta Jēkabsone’s vocals are enthralling, cohesively implemented alongside upright piano with inventive effects and electronica aspects. — Obscure Sound, a music column by Mike Mineo

From the very first notes, Jēkabsone’s voice anchors the listener — warm, pure, and full of quiet strength. She doesn’t perform these songs so much as embody them… There’s something transcendent about hearing her glide between Latvian lyrics and spontaneous melodic phrasing, bridging the sacred and the contemporary in a way that feels both reverent and daring. — Odyssey Magazine, review bu IAIN JOHNSON

Unfurling a magical, hypnotic aural universe, New York-based jazz vocalist and composer Arta Jēkabsone builds an aural experience that’s incredibly heartwarming and euphoric, a nugget of fable-like charisma delivered by folklore-driven vocals and cathartic choirs. Threading the fine line between folk and jazz sensibility, ‘Dziesmu Kamoliņš (Garland of Songs)’ packs eleven wondrous and elegant pieces, all written by Jēkabsone in the Latvian language, yet with a global appeal. —Mesmerized, review by Gabriel Mazza

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Primary Instrument

Vocals

Location

New York City

Willing to teach

Intermediate to advanced

Credentials/Background

Arta Jēkabsone's educational experiences include teaching jazz voice and technique workshops, jazz ensemble repertoire, and compositional courses. She has taught workshops internationally at Ventspils Groove 2022 & 2023, Siguldas Starptautiskie Meistarkursi 2023, JazzKuko Festival 2017, and Liepāja Music 2017. Recently, Arta Jēkabsone and Swedish London-based vocalist Liselotte Östblom co-founded The Vocal Retreat, which is an online-based vocal workshop focusing on vocal techniques for contemporary singers. Since 2023 Arta Jēkabsone is a faculty at New York Concervatory of Music. She also teaches privately in her NYC home-studio and via zoom.