AMYRA
AMYRA is a vocalist, composer and multidisciplinary creator crafting ritual-driven performances where soul, jazz, and poetic testimony converge.
Amyra León is a vocalist, composer, and multidisciplinary artist from Harlem whose work moves across music, literature, and performance. Rooted in liberation, communal healing, and the power of testimony, her practice centers the voice as both instrument and archive.
She has released two studio albums, Something Melancholy and WITNESS, and is the critically acclaimed author of Concrete Kids (Penguin Random House) and Freedom, We Sing (Flying Eye Books). Her work was featured in a PBS American Masters documentary on her artistry, which received an NAACP Award nomination.
León has performed internationally across the U.S. and Europe, with recent appearances including the Basel Sinfonietta, Oper am Rhein Orchestra, Winter Jazzfest, and collaborations with Theo Croker and Chief Adjuah at Blue Note Jazz Club and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
She is a MacDowell Fellow and Artist in Residence at Vineyard Theatre, and is an Artist Researcher at the Endometriosis Foundation of America.
THE WAITING ROOM
third studio album set for release Fall 2026
A meditation on waiting - for diagnosis, for love, for alignment between body and spirit.
Moving through chronic illness, desire, and devotion, The Waiting Room traces a passage from rupture to renewal.
Carried by an innate yearning to live, the work transforms stillness into motion - shifting isolation into presence.
LIVE PERFORMANCES
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
May 29 - 651 ARTS
September 11 - Lincoln Center (Album Release)
TOURING
AMYRA is currently booking a U.S. and international tour in support of The Waiting Room.
Available formats:
Solo (voice + piano)
Trio
Ensemble
Orchestral collaboration
RECENT PERFORMANCES
Basel Sinfonietta - Switzerland
Oper am Rhein Orchestra - Germany
Winter Jazzfest
UK Tour - Apples and Snakes x U.S. Embassy
Chief Adjuah - Blue Note Jazz Club & Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club Residency
Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival
Louis Armstrong House Museum
SELECT VENUES
Lincoln Center · Brooklyn Academy of Music · The Nuyorican Poets Cafe · Joe’s Pub · Apollo Theater · St. Ann’s Warehouse · National Sawdust · Montpellier National Opera · Théâtre du Châtelet · Gulbenkian Foundation · Southbank Centre · Roundhouse · Jazz Cafe · TEDx · Edinburgh Festival Fringe · Hammer Museum · Los Angeles County Museum of Art · El Museo del Barrio
AWARDS & RECOGNITION
NAACP Image Award — Nominee
Waterstones Book Prize — Shortlisted
UKLA Book Awards — Shortlisted
Kate Greenaway Medal — Nominee
YALSA Amazing Audiobooks — Selected
GRANTS & RESIDENCIES
MacDowell Fellowship (2026)
Vineyard Theatre — Artist in Residence (2026)
Endometriosis Foundation of America — Artist Researcher
Next Jazz Legacy Fellowship
The TEAM — Petri Grant
Louis Armstrong House Museum — Residency
Arts Council England Grant
Battersea Arts Centre — Award & Residency
THE WAITING ROOM: VISUAL ALBUM
The visual universe for the album was created in collaboration with critically acclaimed choreographers Mike Tyus and Luca Renzi. This surrealist dreamscape is the antithesis of the waiting room from which these songs were written. I wanted to build a sense of escapism and relief for a sonic landscape that meditates on the space between life and death, surrender and praise, suffering and transcendence.
