Lena Seikaly is a fresh voice on the national jazz scene from Washington, D.C. Named “one of Washington’s preeminent jazz singers” and “brightest voices in jazz” (The Washington Post), as well as a “major league young talent in jazz” by Duke Ellington’s biographer, Dr. John Hasse, Lena is already making her mark as both a revivalist of traditional jazz vocals, as well as an innovator in contemporary vocal jazz styles. As the leader of her own trio, quartet and quintet, Lena has performed to sold-out crowds at such legendary D.C. institutions as Blues Alley, the Strathmore Mansion, the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, the Carlyle Club, the Hamilton, Twins Jazz, the National Portrait Gallery and other Smithsonian venues, various embassies, and to festivals in Holland, Switzerland, and France. She was a Strathmore Artist-In-Residence in 2009, and is an alum of the prestigious Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residency in Washington, D.C. and Jazz Aspen Snowmass program in Aspen, CO, directed by Christian McBride.
Lena has self-produced three albums in the past four years – “Written In The Stars” (2009), “Lovely Changes” (2011) and “Looking Back” (2013) – the latter two of which were released to sold-out shows at Blues Alley. All three received critical acclaim from music critics in leading D.C. online and print publications, garnering full-page, in-depth feature articles in the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper. Dubbed “the work of a supremely confident master of her instrument” (Washington City Paper), “Looking Back” features all music from the 1920s and ‘30s, includes liner notes by Dr. John Hasse, and can be heard frequently on D.C.’s jazz radio station, WPFW 89.3.