Cécile McLorin Salvant

Cécile McLorin Salvant, born on August 28, 1989 in Miami, Florida, is a French-American jazz singer, composer, and visual artist of Haitian heritage. Raised by a French mother and a Haitian father, she began classical piano at age five and later studied French law at the Université Pierre-Mendès France in Grenoble while simultaneously training in baroque and jazz singing at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence. In 2010, she won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition and released her debut album. She has since put out eight albums, six of which received Grammy nominations — winning three consecutively: *For One to Love* (2015), *Dreams and Daggers* (2017), and *The Window* (2018), all on Mack Avenue Records. Her most recent album, *With Every Breath I Take*, was released in 2026 on Nonesuch Records. Her music weaves together jazz, blues, vaudeville, baroque, and folk traditions, and she sings in English, French, Occitan, and Haitian Kreyòl. She has performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival, and the Village Vanguard, and was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 2020.