Born in Ethiopia and raised in Vietnam and Sweden, she studied jazz and composition in Sweden and lives and works in Stockholm. An exceptional singer/voice artist and composer, her work focuses on unconventional techniques and sounds such as non-verbal vocalisation, split tones, toneless singing, and distortion. 

Music theatre and contemporary opera play an important role in Jernberg’s artistic work. She participated in performances of Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire in 2010 and Salvatore Sciarrino’s Lohengrinin 2014 by the Swedish ensemble Norrbotten NEO and embodied roles specifically written for her in new works such as Folie à deux by Emily Hall and UR_by Anna Thorvaldsdottir. Another running theme in her work is the collaboration with visual artists such as Camille Norment in her pieces Raptureand Lull. Sofia Jernberg can be seen as a singer in the film Union of the North with Matthew Barney, Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannsson. 

She has received several commissions for compositions and is currently working on a composition for children’s choir, soprano, voice and chamber ensemble for the 2022 Ultima Contemporary Music Festival. In 2021/22, she has given the world premiere of Chaya Czernowin’s Atarawith the ORF Vienna at Wien Modern and has been a guest at Maerzmusik Berlin with a solo recital. A production of Pierrot lunaire, directed by Marlene Monteiro Freitas and conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, featured her as soloist together with Klangforum Wien at the 2021 Wiener Festwochen. In 2022, she makes her debut at the Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen presenting Pierrot lunaire, where she will also perform a solo recital.