sarah elizabeth charles

Sarah Elizabeth Charles is a vocalist/composer/producer/teaching artist/mother based in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked and studied with artists such as  Geri Allen, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, George Cables, Terri Lyne Carrington and Sheila Jordan. She has also released four critically acclaimed albums with her band, SCOPE (feat. Burniss Earl Travis II, Jesse Elder, John Davis, Jesse Fischer and Jordan Peters) between 2012 and 2022 and her fifth album, Dawn (2025), with a brand new ensemble featuring Linda May Han Oh, Maya Keren, Savannah Harris, Skye Steele and Marika Hughes. As the active vocalist in a number of bands (including Ajoyo,  duo with Jarrett Cherner, Freedom Riders, Jesse Fischer and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah), Charles has performed at many venues throughout her career. These have included The White House, Carnegie Hall, the first annual Culture Summit in Abu Dhabi, The Kennedy Center, the Rose Theatre with Jazz at Lincoln Center and many more. She has also had a commissioned composition performed at The National Gallery in Washington D.C. via The Canales Project "Hear Her Song" initiative.

In addition to her performance work, Charles is an active educator and activist. She works as a lead teaching artist with Carnegie Hall’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility Musical Connections workshop, has a private lessons studio in New York City, is an adjunct professor at The New School for Jazz/College of Performing Arts, co-teaching two courses called "Jazz and Gender” (undergraduate) and "New Narratives: Creating Space for Equity in Music" (graduate) with Dr. Caroline Davis and has developed an early childhood music education program with Rise2Shine, a non-profit organization based in Fond Parisien, Haiti. Charles has been the recipient of a number of honors including the Yale School of Music's Distinguished Teaching Artist Award,  the New York City Women's Fund grant, Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works grant and the New York Voices Commission for her song cycle “Liberating the Bird” set to Dr. Maya Angelou’s poetry. Since 2021, she has been an active member of the This Is A Movement initiative working toward creating more equitable spaces and connecting various individuals, organizations and activists working to do the same.

Charles' musical output has been described as a “genre of one” (DownBeat Magazine), “soulfully articulate” (NY Times) and “an unmatched sound” (Jay Z’s Life+Times). One can only look to the future for more unique and boundary pushing work from this one of a kind artist.