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Jhoely Garay is a New York-based guitarist, composer, arranger and educator from Mexico City, Mexico, whose music expresses her passion for straight-ahead swing, contemporary jazz, and musics and rhythms from Latin America.
She graduated with a Bachelor's in jazz guitar performance at The City College of New York and a Master’s in composition at the Manhattan School of Music. Garay has studied and collaborated with iconic artists such as Steve Wilson, Darcy James Argue, Jaime Lozano, Ruben Rodriguez, Peter Bernstein, Jim McNeely, Mike Holober, Scott Reeves, and Rogerio Boccato, among others.
Her work has been presented in important venues in various countries, such as The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, The Public Theater, Aaron Davis Hall, The Clemente Soto Cultural Center, Culture Lab LIC, The Stone, Shea Center for Performing Arts, Blas Galindo Auditorium, Festival Internacional de Jazz de Córdoba, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Margaret Greenham Theater, Rolston Hall, National Arts Center in Mexico, among others.
Garay is a five-time winner of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation scholarship and the Austin and Florence Kaye Foundation scholarship. She was awarded the Stanford Jazz Mentor Fellowship 2022-23, the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble Prize in 2020 and the Repsol Emerging Artist Award in 2017. She was selected to participate in the Woodshed Network Residency in 2021 directed by the Tony Award-winning NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater, and participated in the International Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music at The Banff Centre in Canada in 2017.
In addition, she is a Latin Grammy Foundation Ambassador, an ASCAP Fran Morgenstern 2022 awardee, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 2023 grantee, an awardee of the “Young Creators” program 2019-2020 by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts in Mexico, and the New York City Artist Corps 2021 grantee.
Garay is a passionate educator committed to share her love for music. She is part of the guitar faculty at the Jazz House Kids New York, Stanford Jazz Workshop, 92NY music program and Riverdale Music Studio. Garay has also taught several masterclasses in jazz guitar and composition at higher education institutions in Mexico and the U.S., such as Portland State University, Jazz Education Network Conference, Universidad Veracruzana JazzUV, Universidad de Queretaro, Universidad Autónoma de Colima.