Jessika Kenney

Jessika Kenney is a Los Angeles-based composer, vocalist, writer, and educator. Kenney’s work hovers at the intersection of voice, text, and tradition through subtle and multidimensional compositions that draw from a range of influences, from her early involvement in Seattle’s underground music and activist scenes, to intensive studies in Indonesia and in Persian art music. Kenney has collaborated with musicians, (Niloufar Shiri, Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, Julia Holter, Lori Goldston, Clara De Asís, Jarrad Powell), writers (Anne Carson, Will Alexander, Raphael Amahl Khouri), and artists (Melati Suryodarmo, Claudia Maerzendorfer, Antonius Oki Wiriadjaja). As a sought-after interpreter of vocal music, Kenney has performed and recorded the works of composers Alvin Lucier, Annea Lockwood, Hossein Omoumi, Daniel Schmidt, Sarah Davachi, and Trimpin. She composed the vocal music to director Ari Aster’s 2019 horror film Midsommar and helped train the actors in specialized vocal techniques. With her longstanding musical partner, violist and composer Eyvind Kang, Kenney has released several critically acclaimed albums, including Aestuarium (2005), the face of the earth (2012, re-released 2026), and most recently Azure (2023) all on Ideologic Organ. Her most recent solo LP Uranian Void was released October 31, 2025 on Kou Records and includes a video filmed and directed by Keli Mashburn. She earned a Bachelor’s of Music in jazz voice and composition from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, where she later taught voice and composition before joining special faculty at California Institute of the Arts until 2021.