Selma Savolainen is a vocalist and composer based in Helsinki, who effortlessly combines Finnish folk sounds with jazz and alt singer-songwriter styles. Recently awarded with the Rising Talent Prize at the Pori Jazz Festival, she has been praised by the Helsingin Sanomat as a singer who is taking Finnish vocal jazz to new heights.

Her debut solo album 'Horror Vacui,' released by the renowned Whirlwind Recordings in May 2023, received the Emma Award, Finland's equivalent of the Grammy, for the best jazz album of the year in 2024. The album features some of the most sought-after musicians on the Finnish jazz scene – Max Zenger on clarinets, Tomi Nikku on trumpet, Toomas Keski-Säntti on piano, Eero Tikkanen on double bass and Okko Saastamoinen on drums.

'Horror Vacui' is a set of songs composed and arranged specifically for this sextet, exploring the fear of emptiness, renunciation and sudden discoveries. "By creating space for every musician's voice, we hope to find a place where loneliness does not exist," Savolainen says.

Savolainen is an alumnus of the Betty Carter's Jazz Ahead program and the Banff International Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music. She was selected to participate in the Collaborative Creative Residency at the Pocantico Center of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund by Composers Now, an organization led by Tania Leon. She has graduated from the Sibelius Academy and studied at the Conservatory of Paris.

Savolainen tours frequently with the bands Selma Juudit Alessandra, Signe, Mikko Sarvanne Garden and Mikko Innasen Uusi Kvintetti. Her virtuosic yet emotive singing has been heard in EFG London Jazz Festival, Apollo Theater, Getxo Jazz Festival and We Jazz Festival i.a.  Her compositions for Signe were nominated for the Teosto award in 2020 and she has worked as an artistic producer and arranger on the albums and concerts of the folk music duo Akkajee and Pykäri and Karina, the Finnish indie pop acts.