About
Zoey Madison has known she wanted to be a singer for as long as she can remember. At six years old, she was already trying to figure out how to get an agent. That early determination has grown into the career of a modern R&B/pop artist with a rare four-octave vocal range and extended whistle register, drawing inspiration from powerhouse singers across generations, from Ariana Grande, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey to Julie Andrews and Judy Garland.
Zoey’s debut EP, Electric, introduced an artist with both an extraordinary instrument and an increasingly distinctive musical point of view. Three of the EP’s four songs received international songwriting recognition. The title track, “Electric,” was a semifinalist in the International Songwriting Competition; “Move” was a runner-up in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest; and “Scars” was a finalist and received Outstanding Achievement in Songwriting honors from the Great American Songwriting Contest. The EP also earned coverage from EARMILK, BPM, MELODIC Magazine, and hundreds of Spotify playlists.
But Zoey’s relationship with music has never been simply about having a big voice. Growing up, she spent hours studying powerhouse singers from different eras, paying close attention to the details: vibrato, melisma, phrasing, harmony, and the personal choices that can transform a technically impressive vocal into an emotional performance.
That curiosity still drives her songwriting and recording today. Cinematic ballads, dance songs, organic instrumentation, classic rock edginess and old-school elegance all find their way into Zoey’s music. Her sessions with producer Matt Chiaravalle (Enisa, Debbie Harry, Warren Zevon, Courtney Love) are deliberately freewheeling, with different eras and genres feeding into experimentation.
Zoey is particularly instinctive with melody and harmony. Ideas often emerge on the spot in the studio, and she tends to keep hearing new possibilities even after a song feels finished. “I wanted to add even more! After it was mastered, I was jokingly singing over it, ready to add more layers,” she says, laughing.
That mixture of instinct and discipline has been there since childhood. When Zoey decided that a traditional school schedule no longer made sense alongside her training and career, she didn’t simply ask her parents if she could switch to virtual school. She arrived with a PowerPoint presentation making her case.
Her training has been equally wide-ranging. Zoey has studied musical theater, opera, classical music, dance, acting, and voice, both privately and at institutions including Berklee College of Music and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Along the way, she has worked with Emmy-winning director and choreographer Kenny Ortega and Emmy and Tony Award-winning singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth, with whom she performed onstage on numerous occasions. She has also worked with NBC’s The Voice vocal coach Stevie Mackey and performed at his well-known Taco Tuesday events.
After years of performing, Zoey has also learned that bringing a voice into a recording studio is an art unto itself. Her work with Chiaravalle has helped her translate the energy and range of her live performances into recordings, while showing her how much can happen inside a song through arrangement, harmony, and layering.
That evolution comes through on the soaring ballad “Love Like You,” with its sweeping strings, crystalline piano, and hopeful take on heartbreak. Now, with her new single “Picture Perfect,” out now, Zoey continues to explore the range of her voice and musical instincts.
Recently relocated to New York City and now living in the East Village, Zoey is surrounded by the creative energy she’s been drawn to since she was a little girl trying to figure out how to get an agent. She is still studying, experimenting, and pushing herself; only now she is doing it as an artist building a body of work entirely her own.