Join us for opening night of the Women’s Jazz Festival with the return of Somi!

Somi Kakoma — the vocalist, composer, writer, and performer known in the jazz world simply as ‘Somi’ — was born in Illinois to parents who emigrated from Rwanda and Uganda. Hailed by The New York Times as “a performer in full command of her instrument and powers”, she discovered her musical identity traversing the cultural bridge between Africa and America. That sense of discovery continues to guide a career in which she has has crafted “an elegant amalgam of the musics she loves and the bi-continental experiences that have shaped her life.”(NPR)

Somi’s last album, Zenzile: The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba is a deeply personal all-star tribute to Miriam Makeba, the groundbreaking South African singer and activist who turned 31 years of political exile during the apartheid era into a career of global triumph and influence. The album was ultimately awarded Best Jazz Vocal Performance at the inaugural Jazz Music Awards. It is also a companion project to the award-winning Off-Broadway musical (also about Miriam Makeba) that Somi wrote and starred in called “Dreaming Zenzile”. Both projects arrived on the heels of the unplanned release Holy Room – Live at Alte Oper with Frankfurt Radio Big Band that Somi decided to independently put out shortly after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The album ultimately earned her a 2021 Grammy® nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. With that nomination, Somi became the first African woman ever nominated in any of the Grammy® jazz categories. The album also won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Vocal Album. Learn more at her website: https://www.somimusic.com.

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