How Laufey Got Over Impostor Syndrome, Took On Arenas — And Became More Herself Than Ever

As the temperature flirted with 100 degrees on a scorching day last April in Indio, Calif., Coachella festivalgoers watched an unusual performance: the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, playing the first set billed solely to an orchestra in the event's 26-year history. But after a rendition of Richard Wagner's 19th century warhorse “Ride of the Valkyries,†the orchestra welcomed an unexpected guest soloist to the stage: the genre-defying, Iceland-born singer-songwriter Laufey.

“The L.A. Phil is one of the best orchestras in the world. I never thought I'd be able to play with them in any capacity,†says the modern jazz phenom, who played her bossa nova-­inspired TikTok hit “From the Start†with the ensemble. “It was a really emotional moment for me, because growing up as an orchestra kid, I always thought something like Coachella was a little far from what I was familiar with.â€

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Laufey was born in Reykjavík, Iceland — the same year Coachella debuted — to a musical family. Her grandparents were professors of music in China, while her mother is a classical violinist, and she had started studying piano and cello by age 8. Moving between Iceland and Washington, D.C., Laufey spent her summers at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing before moving to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she began to post videos online of herself performing jazz standards by the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and more and quickly amassed an audience. Managers, labels and publishers noticed her tracks taking off on DistroKid — and Laufey began taking business meetings on her own before committing to an independent global recording deal with AWAL in 2020.

By 2022, she'd released her debut album, a fusion of classical music, confessional pop and traditional jazz that soon dominated the Billboard jazz charts. Her second album, 2023's Bewitched, topped the Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums charts, and its follow-up, 2025's A Matter of Time, hit No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard 200, becoming her first top 10 there — and signaling the long-awaited merging of her disparate influences. But the real culmination for this year's Women in Music Innovator was a few months before A Matter of Time's release, on that Indio stage.

“There, in that moment,†Laufey says, “singing with the L.A. Phil, these songs that I've written, in front of a Coachella audience that grew the second weekend, I've never felt more whole in my life. I've never felt more me. I didn't have to give up any part of myself to achieve the goals that I wanted. It was quite profound.â€

Do you see yourself as an innovator?

Every artist, especially this new crop of artists right now, are all innovators. I started out from my bedroom with a phone and was posting videos on the internet and answering emails from labels and managers and figuring it out myself. I've been independent for these last three albums and being an independent artist has been a huge part of who I am. That involves an incredible amount of innovation, not only for myself, but very much from my team.

I don't know if it is innovative, but I'm definitely thinking like an entrepreneur.

Are there particular innovators you look up to?

Lady Gaga is a great example of a true innovator. She has so many different artists within her while still being fully Lady Gaga. That's true innovation — being able to be yourself while fulfilling different genres and different costumes, like stepping into the role of a film.

For this most recent tour, you upgraded from clubs to arenas. Were you intimidated by the change?

I definitely was a little bit at first. The first concert I played, I was like, “Whoa. Who do I think I am to be playing here?†But then it became quite natural, and I got over the impostor syndrome pretty fast.

How do you preserve the intimacy of your music for such a large space?

Knowing when to make things big and knowing when to make things small is really important. When you have a big number with dancers and a big orchestra with strings and the band and big visuals, you want to make those as fantastical as possible. We drew a lot of inspiration from opera, from ballet, from musical theater to make these moments feel really big.

I made sure to [also] have those moments where I was playing alone with a guitar, alone with a piano, no one else singing, no one else playing and connecting with the fans and [being] as close to the audience as possible — getting into the pit and walking and holding hands with the fans and singing with them. Those moments make it feel really intimate. I get to be a lot closer to them, strangely, in an arena.

The set pieces for the stage were very dramatic and ­theatrical.

Every single part of the stage is an opportunity for storytelling. Every part of the stage could be what someone zeroes in on. On the staircase we have etchings of emblems from the lyrics from A Matter of Time. On the stage itself, it's a big compass that has many different ways that different cultures tell time. That's how I view my music too. Every single lyric could be someone's favorite lyric.

Every part of the stage, every part of the show, from the second you walk in, I wanted [the fans] to be immersed. People spend so much time and so much money and so much heart learning the lyrics, getting ready, getting dressed, getting their outfit ready — that needs to be the best show I can possibly put on.

What is it like having your identical twin sister, Junia, as your creative director?

She's a big part of being able to make all these things happen because I have this other voice who understands all the sources of things I love — things from our childhood. We have the same sources of inspiration, except she's better at putting it together and communicating it. I'm all over the place.

You bring different skill sets.

Yeah! She can write an email. I can't write an email to save my life. It's really horrifying, actually.

You had lots of special guests join you on this tour — PinkPantheress, Rachel Zegler, Hozier, KATSEYE. What is it like performing with such different kinds of artists?

I love being able to perform with artists who do something very different from me because it's my opportunity to hear my voice in another light — or an opportunity to have Benson Boone sing a jazz standard. He killed it! His voice lent to it so well. [At the show] in L.A., I had a song called “Magnolia†that I knew Hozier would be able to make even more devastating and beautiful. When will I ever get to sing with a KATSEYE? With a girl group? That's so sick. Those are all my opportunities to show the world that I'm not in some box.

When Lin-Manuel Miranda came out to sing with you in New York the crowd went wild.

Hearing a full arena, a full Madison Square Garden screaming… it has never been louder [at any of my shows]. That was the loudest, by far, reaction to a guest [I've had]. Everyone was singing along. I've never heard that many people sing along to a musical theater song and that brought me so much joy. We need more people who love theater.

Do you plan to create or star in a Broadway musical at some point soon?

I am always thinking in the back of my mind and have a long list of melodies and music that will go toward a musical one day. Musicals take forever to put together. That's what draws me to [them]. It's such a slow art. A lot of the art around me, even though my music is taken from the past, it's fast. You could write a song and produce it and release it in one day and it could be the biggest song in the world.

But I also never want to be in the position where I'm taking a role away from somebody who's worked their whole life to do it. I don't want to walk in as the person who won a Grammy and therefore got to be onstage.

What about a movie musical? Maybe with Disney?

The question is about finding the correct project. For a long time when I was starting out as an artist — many artists experience this, we grasp onto every opportunity that comes to us. And, as a young artist, you should do that. But I feel lucky to be in a place now where I get to choose the projects that make sense for me and for my audience and for my music. It is my ultimate dream, truly.

This story appears in the April 18, 2026, issue of Billboard.