Arts Award Highlight: Samara Joy

In the weeks since ArtsWestchester announced the winners of its Arts Awards, ArtsNews is highlighting each honoree to help readers get to know them. The spotlights lead up to a luncheon celebration on April 19, where all 10 honorees will be recognized for the significant impact they’ve had on Westchester County’s arts and culture sector.

Samara Joy | Emerging Artist Award

Samara Joy, a graduate of SUNY Purchase is a rising star following in the footsteps Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.  Joy is the winner of this year’s Grammy Awards in the categories of Best New Artist and Best Vocal Jazz Album for her newly released album, Linger Awhile on Verve Records.

She has been a guest performer at Westchester events for many years, including JazzFest White Plains and the White Plains Juneteenth Parade and Festival. Joy’s rich and velvety, yet refined, voice has already earned her fans like Anita Baker and Regina King, appearances on the TODAY Show and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and millions of likes on TikTok, where her Grammys acceptance speech has been viewed more than 12 million times.

Joy treasures her musical lineage, which stretches back to her grandparents, Elder Goldwire and Ruth McLendon – both of whom performed with Philadelphia gospel group the Savettes – and runs through her father, a singer, songwriter and producer who toured with gospel artist Andraé Crouch. She has followed in this family tradition over the years, first singing in church and then with the jazz band at Fordham High School for the Arts, where she won Best Vocalist in the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition. That led to her enrolling in SUNY Purchase’s jazz studies program, where she fell deeply in love with the music.

She is the 2019 winner of the Sarah Vaughn International Jazz Vocal Competition and 2021 Best New Artist from JAZZ TIMES, and has more than a half million followers on TikTok, where she has released a number of viral video performances. On the strength of this success, she has toured Europe, including a series of sold-out concerts in Italy and Austria. In 2021 and continuing into 2022, she toured the U.S., including bookings at the 2022 Monterey Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center Summer for the City’s Jazz Underground series and NYC Winter Jazzfest. In June 2022, she was featured at Carnegie Hall’s 16th Annual Notable Occasion and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival.

(photo credit: Meredith Truax)

About ArtsWestchester

For more than 50 years, ArtsWestchester has been the community’s connection to the arts. Founded in 1965, it is the largest private not-for-profit arts council in New York State. Its mission is to create an equitable, inclusive, vibrant and sustainable Westchester County in which the arts are integral to and integrated into every facet of life. ArtsWestchester provides programs and services that enrich the lives of everyone in Westchester County. ArtsWestchester helps fund concerts, exhibitions and plays through grants; brings artists into schools and community centers; advocates for the arts; and builds audiences through diverse marketing initiatives. In 1998, ArtsWestchester purchased the nine-story neo-classical bank building at 31 Mamaroneck Avenue which has since been transformed into a multi-use resource for artists, cultural organizations and the community. A two-story gallery is located on the first floor of ArtsWestchester’s historic building on Mamaroneck Avenue. artsw.org