Kavita Shah

Musician

Kavita Shah is an award-winning vocalist, composer, ethnomusicology researcher, educator, and lifelong New Yorker hailed by NPR for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages.” Her original projects blending modern jazz, new music, and world traditions include Visions (2014), Folk Songs of Naboréa (2017), Interplay (2018, nominated for France’s Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year), and her tribute to African legend Cesária Évora, Cape Verdean Blues (2023). Kavita performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents, and her work has been supported by New Music America, Chamber Music America, Jerome Foundation, Camargo Foundation, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and Park Avenue Armory. Her collaborators include NEA Jazz Master Sheila Jordan, Martial Solal, MacArthur Genius Miguel Zenón, Lionel Loueke, François Moutin, and Miho Hazama.

Kavita holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard, an M.M. in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music, and speaks nine languages. A fierce advocate for gender and racial equity in the arts, she is the founder of Folkalist Records, a label centering female voices from the Global South, was also a founding member of the We Have Voice Collective and the Ori-Gen Collective.