BIO:

Named Northwest Emerging Artist of the Year by Earshot Jazz, Jahnvi Madan is an Indian American clarinetist, improviser, composer, and educator currently based in Seattle. As a bandleader, she has performed her original music at several well-known Jazz Festivals, including the Washington D.C. Women in Jazz Festival, the Westerlies Festival, and recently at Earshot Jazz Festival, as their youngest commissioned composer. Madan has established herself locally, playing her music with her quintet at venues around Seattle like the Royal Room and Seattle Jazz Fellowship. She has received funding for her musical projects from the City of Seattle, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, Artist Trust, New England Conservatory, the City of Auburn, and more. A recent graduate of the New England Conservatory, she studied under renowned musicians such as Jason Moran, Melissa Aldana, Dominique Eade, and Frank Carlberg. Madan recorded her debut album in November 2024 at Studio Litho in Seattle, with support from Artist Trust’s GAP Grant, the Presser Foundation, and New England Conservatory’s Spark Award. It will be released in the Spring of 2025. Madan is currently Artist-in Residence at Town Hall Seattle.

Education + Equity

As a music educator for over 9 years, Madan is committed to inclusivity, and recently planned, ran, and taught at Seattle JazzED’s Femme Jazz Day, an event that focused on building confidence improvising for young femme musicians. While a student at the New England Conservatory, she was instrumental in establishing the Institution’s first ever DEI space - the Cultural Equity and Belonging OfLice; it came as a direct result of her outspoken activism online and on campus. Also while at NEC, Madan served as President of the Students Advocating for Gender Equity Club, programming concerts and events all year that gave platforms to marginalized students on campus, and successfully pushed the school to diversify curriculum and implement new staff trainings. A Teaching Fellow for both her Junior and Senior year, she worked weekly with elementary school wind players as well as high school Jazz bands, teaching on topics ranging from woodwind fundamentals and composition to Jazz articulation and improvisation. A member of Seattle JazzED’s Anti- Racist Task Force, Madan developed and co-taught a course on Anti-Racism + Jazz in 2020. She is currently working with elementary, middle, and high schoolers through Seattle JazzED and local school districts. She believes strongly in the role of an educator to instill a student with a deep belief in their own capabilities, and a willingness to try new things.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS/AWARDS:

•        2025 Artist-in Residence, Town Hall Seattle (Feb-June)

•        2025 Artist-in Residence, Mary Olson Farm in Auburn

•        2025 King Street Station Grant, (funding a series of Live Jazz Shows Madan will curate + perform at)

•        2024 Artists at the Center Grant, Seattle Center

•        2024 GAP Grant, Artist Trust (funding for her debut album)

•        2024 Spark Award, New England Conservatory (prestigious grant for graduating students, will go towards funding her debut album)

•        2023 Pacific Northwest Emerging Artist of the Year

•        2023 Winner of Earshot Jazz Festival Composition Commission (performed set of original music at Earshot Jazz Festival)

•        2023 Emerging Artist, Washington Women in Jazz Festival

•        2023 Performer at Westerlies Festival

•        2023, 2021 Teaching Fellow, New England Conservatory

•        2022 Honors Ensemble, New England Conservatory (prestigious coaching for exemplary musicianship)

•        2022 Nova Fellow, New England Conservatory (prestigious fellowship granted to 4 students)

•        2019 Univ. of Montana Jazz Festival Outstanding Musician Award

•        2019 Bellevue College Jazz Festival Outstanding Soloist Award

•        2019 Louis Armstrong Jazz Award

•        2018 Seattle Women in Jazz Amanda Wilde Inspire Youth Award (for musicianship, inspiration, and advocacy).

 

My name is Jahnvi Madan. I am a clarinetist and composer from Seattle whose music reflects my lived experience -- a response to the invisibility I felt growing up as a first generation Indian American-- so ignored in the media I watched, writings I read, music I listened to, that I questioned my own existence, unsure of how I was living every day when nothing reflected who I was or how I felt. I strive to now make those experiences visible through sonic expression, and concretely create a true space of belonging that brings an audience together, brings more first- generation people of color, Indian people, into these rooms they are absent from, and through that, allow jazz music to find new audiences within my city. My performances create reflective spaces for my community while still bringing along listeners from all walks of life; my music navigates difficult topics while still centering resilience, in this way paving a new pathway while paying homage to the spirit of Jazz. Jazz should inherently be an inclusive and expressive art form; I want to help allow it to be that for all communities to which I belong.

Artist Statement