Lauren Amber Newton is an avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...

 and contemporary classical

Contemporary classical music

Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...

 singer, composer and teacher, best known as a founding member of the Vienna Art Orchestra

Vienna Art Orchestra

The Vienna Art Orchestra was a European jazz group based in Vienna, Austria. Organized at different times as either a big band or as a smaller combo, it was regarded as one of the leading European jazz ensembles and was an official cultural ambassador of the Republic of Austria.-History:Founded in...

.

Born 16 November 1952 in Coos Bay, Oregon

Coos Bay, Oregon

Coos Bay is a city located in Coos County, Oregon, United States, where the Coos River enters Coos Bay on the Pacific Ocean. The city borders the city of North Bend, and together they are often referred to as one entity called either Coos Bay-North Bend or the Bay Area...

, Lauren Newton earned a degree in music at the University of Oregon

University of Oregon

-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

. In 1974 Newton moved to Europe and continued her music studies with Sylvia Geszty at the conservatory

State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart

The State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart is a professional school for musicians and performing artists in Stuttgart, Germany...

 in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. In 1977 she joined Mathias Rüegg

Mathias Rüegg

Mathias Rüegg is a European musician, composer, and bandleader best known as founder and director of the Vienna Art Orchestra from 1977 to 2010....

's Vienna Art Orchestra, touring widely with the group until 1989. Together with Bobby McFerrin

Bobby McFerrin

Robert "Bobby" McFerrin, Jr. is an American vocalist and conductor. He is best known for his 1988 hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy". He is a ten-time Grammy Award winner.-Life:...

, Jeanne Lee

Jeanne Lee

Jeanne Lee was an American jazz singer, poet and composer. Best known for a wide range of vocal styles she mastered, Lee collaborated with numerous distinguished composers and performers which included Gunter Hampel, Ran Blake, Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, and many...

, Urszula Dudziak

Urszula Dudziak

Urszula Bogumiła Dudziak-Urbaniak is a leading Polish jazz vocalist. She has worked with such artists as Krzysztof Komeda, Michał Urbaniak , Gil Evans, Archie Shepp, and Lester Bowie...

 and Jay Clayton

Jay Clayton

Jay Clayton is an internationally acclaimed avant-garde vocalist and jazz educator.- Early years :...

 she formed the Vocal Summit in 1982 (CD, TV broadcasting, tour).

Lauren Newton's music is typically highly abstract, blending conventional technique with non-conventional vocal sounds. She also performs modern art music and teaches singers. After a guest professorship at the university for music and visual arts of Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

 (Austria) and teaching positions at the Berlin University of the Arts

Berlin University of the Arts

The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...

 and the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen

Essen

- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...

, Germany, she was appointed in 2002 to a professorship for jazz singing and free improvisation at the Musikhochschule Luzern

Musikhochschule Luzern

The Lucerne School of Music is a professional school for musicians located in Lucerne, Switzerland, and closely associated with the city's annual music festival.-History:...

 in Lucerne

Lucerne

Lucerne is a city in north-central Switzerland, in the German-speaking portion of that country. Lucerne is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne and the capital of the district of the same name. With a population of about 76,200 people, Lucerne is the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and...

, Switzerland.

In 1983 Newton released her first solo album, Timbre (reissued on CD in 1998 as "Filigree"), which received a German Critics' Award. From 1983 to 1999 she worked with the Austrian poet Ernst Jandl

Ernst Jandl

Ernst Jandl was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator.- Poetry :Influenced by Dada he started to write experimental poetry, first published in the journal "Neue Wege" in 1952....

. She performed Adriana Hölszky

Adriana Hölszky

Adriana Hölszky is an Romanian-born German music educator, composer and pianist who has been living in Germany since 1976.-Biography:...

's Comment for Lauren and other works by Hans-Joachim Hespos, Bernd Konrad, Hannes Zerbe, and Wolfgang Dauner. In 1993 she performed Henning Schmiedt's adaptation for solo vocalist of Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's Kindertotenlieder. In 1998 she joined in the international conference Frau Musica (nova)

Frau musica nova

Frau Musica Nova was a conference held in November 1998 at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, focusing on historical and living women composers. The conference consisted of both academic paper sessions and concerts, including a newly commissioned work by Pauline Oliveros....

 at the conservatory in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, Germany.

Among the musicians she has collaborated with are bassist Joëlle Léandre

Joëlle Léandre

Joëlle Léandre is a double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation....

, guitarist Christy Doran

Christy Doran

Christy Doran is a jazz guitarist born in Dublin, Ireland and raised in Lucerne, Switzerland.Doran founded OM with Fredy Studer, Urs Leimgrumber, and Bobby Burri in the 1970s; this ensemble recorded for ECM Records. He and Studer also worked together on a Jimi Hendrix tribute project in the 1990s...

, pianists Patrick Scheyder and Aki Takase

Aki Takase

is a critically acclaimed, award-winning Japanese jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Raised in Tokyo, she studied music at Tohogakuen Music University. Starting in 1978, she performed and recorded in the USA with Lester Bowie, David Liebman, John Zorn and others...

, the Südpool-Ensemble (directed by Herbert Joos), Bernd Konrad, Peter Kowald

Peter Kowald

Peter Kowald was a German free jazz musician.A member of the Globe Unity Orchestra, and a touring double-bass player, Kowald collaborated with a large number of European free jazz and American free-jazz players during his career, including Peter Brötzmann, Irène Schweizer, Karl Berger, Fred...

, Jon Rose

Jon Rose

Jon Rose is an Australian violinist born in the UK in 1951. Rose began playing violin at age 7 after winning a music scholarship to King's School in Rochester. For over 35 years, Rose has been at the sharp end of new, improvised, and experimental music and media...

, Urs Leimgruber, Joachim Kühn

Joachim Kühn

-Biography:Kühn was a musical prodigy and made his debut as a concert pianist, having studied classical piano and composition with Arthur Schmidt-Elsey. Influenced by his elder brother, clarinetist Rolf Kühn, he simultaneously got interested in jazz. In 1961 he became a professional jazz musician....

, and the composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton

Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...

.

External links

• Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians