Lena was born in Damascus to Artine Chamamyan, a Syrian-Armenian Catholic from Aleppo with roots from Marash, and Ghada, originally from Mardin.

Her grandfather, Hovhannes Chamamyan, worked as a tailor in Aleppo and was a member of the Syrian Communist Party.

After finishing his high school education, Artine received a scholarship to study engineering in Damascus, there he met his future wife, Ghada.

As a child, she attended an Armenian Catholic school in the old city of Damascus, where she has stated that she had a hard time finding her place, as the children considered her only half-Armenian.

[4] While finishing a degree in Financial Management at the University of Damascus in 2002, Chamamyan experienced problems in her relationship, she has said that her fiancé broke up with her on graduation day.

This project eventually led to the production of her first two albums, Hal Asmar Ellon in 2006 and Shamat in 2007, in which she remixed new versions of traditional and classical Levantine songs, breathing new air into such well-known Arabic classics as Lamma Bada Yatathanna, a song based on an old Andalusian muwashshah and the titular Hal Asmar Ellon.

During her studies, Chamamyan also entered the Radio Monte Carlo's Middle Eastern music competition, the first of its kind, which she won in 2006.

In 2011, following the eruption of the Syrian Civil War, Chamamyan relocated to Paris, where she currently lives and creates her music.

[7] Her fourth album, LAWNAN (Two Colors), came out in 2016, born out of a three-year collaboration with Turkish composer and kanun player Göksel Baktagir.

Chamamyan has described the album as "a pure partnership between people who chose to unite [in] music...despite the pain of life divid[ing] us, about love and longing for home, about the exile inside and outside".

Chamamyan has stated in interviews that the multilingual nature of her music is significant and important to her, and she hopes to perform in more languages in the future, such as English, French or Greek.