Emilie-Claire Barlow was born on June 6, 1976, in Toronto, the daughter of two working musicians: the drummer Brian Barlow and the singer, composer and arranger Judy Tate. She grew up in recording studios and by the age of seven was singing on television and radio commercials. She studied voice at the Etobicoke School of the Arts and music theory and arranging at Humber College, where she formed her first jazz quartet, and she also learned piano, cello, clarinet and violin. A second career as a voice actor began in the 1990s with the English dubs of Sailor Moon, in which she voiced Sailor Mars and Sailor Venus, and it has run alongside her singing ever since: Chrissy in 6teen, Alice in Bakugan Battle Brawlers, and, from 2007, Courtney in the Total Drama series, which she was still voicing in Total DramaRama through 2023.

Her first album, Sings (1998, Rhythm Tracks), was made with her father, who played drums and vibraphone, arranged it with her and produced it. Its program ran from "Strike Up the Band," "Stolen Moments" and "How High the Moon" to the Brazilian pieces "Pipoca" and "Brazilian Dorian Dream." Tribute (2001), credited to her and the Barlow Group, took on the music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea's "Spain" and two Antonio Carlos Jobim pieces, and earned her first Juno Award nomination, for the 2002 ceremony. Happy Feet (2003) followed with "Freddie Freeloader," "Joy Spring" and "Stompin' at the Savoy." From Like a Lover (2005, catalog EMG441) her albums carry the imprint of her own company, Empress Music Group, and several of them were issued in Japan by Victor. The Very Thought of You (2007) was nominated for the 2008 Juno for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, and that year she was named Female Vocalist of the Year at the National Jazz Awards. In December 2007 she played ten sold-out concerts in Japan.

Haven't We Met? (released March 10, 2009), made in Toronto with guitarist Reg Schwager, pianist David Restivo, bassist Ross MacIntyre, drummer Davide DiRenzo, saxophonist Kelly Jefferson and a string section she conducted herself, drew another Juno nomination. The Beat Goes On (October 12, 2010) deliberately left the American Songbook for 1960s pop and soul, from "Sunshine Superman" and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" to "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'," each rebuilt as a jazz arrangement; she has said the concept clicked when a bass line in seven she had come up with turned out to fit "Sunshine Superman." It brought a nomination at the 2011 Junos, and she won the SiriusXM Indies award for jazz artist of the year in 2011 and again in 2013. Seule ce soir (October 16, 2012), the first album she sang entirely in French, won the 2013 Juno for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year and the Album of the Year, Jazz Interpretation award at the 2013 ADISQ gala. Live in Tokyo was recorded at the Cotton Club in Tokyo on October 14 and 15, 2013, and released on April 22, 2014.

Clear Day (October 23, 2015, eOne) grew out of a 2011 trip on which she and her guitarist entertained scientists aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen in the Arctic; she has described the experience as the push to examine her own life, and the album's songs were chosen as a soundtrack to that period. She and bassist Steve Webster produced and arranged it, and the Metropole Orkest of the Netherlands, expanded to about seventy players and conducted by Jules Buckley, was recorded at its Hilversum studio. The repertoire runs from "On a Clear Day" and the standard "Midnight Sun," co-written by Lionel Hampton, to the Beatles' "Because," Coldplay's "Fix You," Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure," Brad Mehldau's "Unrequited," Pat Metheny's "It's Just Talk" and Joni Mitchell's "I Don't Know Where I Stand." It won the 2016 Juno for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year and earned her a nomination for the Jack Richardson Producer of the Year Award. Around then she moved to Montreal, and a February 2026 interview places her in Quebec City's Limoilou district.

Her later work has leaned toward French and themed projects. Lumières d'hiver (November 3, 2017) is a Quebec-flavored holiday album that includes her first original songs, among them "Le dernier Noël," "Janvier" and the title track, plus a duet with Ingrid St-Pierre. Spark Bird (March 31, 2023) gathers eight songs inspired by birds, including "Over the Rainbow," "Skylark" and "Fais comme l'oiseau." Neige (Live), recorded at Koerner Hall in Toronto with her long-time quintet, a string quartet and three backing singers, appeared on December 5, 2025. La plus belle saison (February 6, 2026), which her own release notes call her fifteenth album, was recorded in Montreal with pianist and arranger François Richard and is sung entirely in French, setting songs by Quebec writers such as Gilles Vigneault, Diane Tell, Jim Corcoran and Daniel Bélanger in jazz, samba and orchestral-pop settings. A single, "Windy Nights," followed on October 2, 2026, and her website lists concert dates in Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario through spring 2027.

Barlow is a singer-arranger-producer who builds her albums around a concept and then arranges the whole thing herself, often for a small band led by Reg Schwager's guitar and Kelly Jefferson's tenor saxophone, sometimes for strings or a full orchestra. She sings in English, French and Portuguese, and her repertoire moves easily between standards, bossa nova and samba, French chanson, 1960s pop and soul, and rock and pop songs recast as jazz. She has named Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Stevie Wonder and the Canadian singer Holly Cole as influences. Her voice is light and clear, with the conversational timing and playful scat of the vocal-jazz tradition, and reviewers of Clear Day described her as an artist at full strength who crafts albums with watchmaker precision. Jazz is the center of her recorded work and of her awards: two Junos for vocal jazz album, seven Juno nominations in all, a Female Vocalist of the Year title from the National Jazz Awards, and festival appearances from Waterloo, Ontario, to Stockholm. Her voice-acting career is a separate, long-running strand of her working life, and the pop leanings of recent albums are why Jazz Pop sits among her subgenre tags.