With a voice that embodies grace and passion and a personal style that sways effortlessly from jazz to R&B to gospel, Shenel Johns has emerged as one of the shining stars of her generation. A native of Hartford, CT, Shenel has been performing since she was 14 and has developed a distinctive, eclectic style that has increasingly caught the attention of her peers and some of the industry’s top performers.

Shenel received a B.A. in Music Management from the Jackie McLean Institute at the Hartt School of Music and studied performance with such jazz legends as Rene McLean, Jimmy Greene and Nat Reeves. She has shared the stage with music royalty including Curtis Fuller, Hank Jones, Dionne Warwick and Sheila Jordan, and has performed and recorded with an impressive array of leaders in the field. In 2016, Shenel completed a musical residency at Jazz at Lincoln Center Doha in Qatar and, several months later, honored Billie Holiday as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s New York production of Billie and the Boys. She has also paid tribute to another of her idols, Lena Horne, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s famed Appel Room. Most recently, she was the winner of the Riga Jazz Stage Competition in Riga, Latvia, and was featured in the Hartford Jazz Festival’s Ella Fitzgerald Tribute.