Lenka was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where, as a child, she sang in musical theatre and studied voice. Once in Canada, she performed in bars, with a rock band (she was a dreadful rock singer, unfortunately) travelling remote parts of British Columbia, and on Princess cruise lines. Back at school, she received her B.Ed. from U.B.C, and M.F.A. in Ethnomusicology from York University. She taught music at the Toronto Metropolitan University (1997-2005) while raising three children.
Lenka’s seven albums, with two released on the U.K. label ARC Music, are collaborations in Yiddish, Czech, and English that received multiple nominations and awards. Her recent projects represent deepening explorations of her family’s tragic history which Lenka did not fully know until adulthood: her mother was a child survivor of the Holocaust.