Emma-Jean Thackray – Composer, Producer and Multi-Instrumentalist

Emma-Jean Thackray is a British composer, producer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist whose work connects jazz, funk, soul, electronic, and popular music through an approach deliberately unconstrained by genre boundaries.

Born in West Yorkshire, she studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and Trinity Laban Conservatoire before building an independent career as a performer, composer, and producer.

Following her early releases and the EP Walrus, she expanded the scope of her work with Yellow (2021), an album that consolidated her musical language around groove, improvisation, vocal arrangements, and the jazz-funk tradition.

On Weirdo (2025), Thackray pushed that autonomy even further by taking responsibility for virtually the entire creative and instrumental process, using her musical vocabulary to explore identity, neurodivergence, grief, and survival.