Samara Joy is adding another notch to her belt of accolades as she gears up to perform at Carnegie Hall for the first time. For the Jazz phenom, though, the thrilling moment is sentimental for a myriad of reasons.
The main one? It’s full circle. In an exclusive sit-down with VIBE, she joked, “[We] have a weird connection.”
Samara explained, “Carnegie Hall did a program called ‘Count Me In’ when I was in middle school, where they would send teachers to come to different middle schools and teach students classical music or choral music. And there’s a picture of me as a part of the signup form.”
The five-time Grammy winner continued, “There’s a picture of me literally in a Carnegie Hall shirt in sixth grade singing, I think it was like ‘America The Beautiful’ or something like that. But to see that picture and have Carnegie Hall stamped on it, and not even know that years later I would be making my debut there is a wild connection, but I’m excited.”
Of the actual sold-out performance, set for Wednesday (April 30), Samara recalled the opportunity arose about six months ago and she was “pretty surprised” by it.
“I felt like it was really early in my journey,” she noted. “But at the same time, obviously it’s such a legendary place in New York and so many legendary artists have performed and graced the stage there, so I’m incredibly excited. It’s orchestrated beyond anything that I could control.”
In addition to Carnegie, the 25-year-old has dreams of performing at the Kennedy Center with National Symphony Orchestra “under better conditions.”
We also caught up with Samara at the 2025 NAACP Image Awards where she sang her favorite Quincy Jones song and reflected on being the IT girl as far as Jazz is concerned.
Watch above.
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